I collapse onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling. I suppose my first day could have gone worse. I could have punched somebody. Or maybe broken the set. Both were highly likely. Actually, I think I’m pretty proud of myself for not breaking anything. Unless you count that one cup that I dropped and quickly hid in a camera case. But there were no witnesses, so it as good as never happened. I get up to head into the shower when I hear Eun Mi come crashing into the apartment.

“LIAAAA!” She bellows and for a moment I consider pretending I’m not home yet, but she will have spotted my shoes by the door. She has the eyes of a hawk and the voice of a howler monkey.

“Yes Mimi.” I reply, dropping back onto my bed. She doesn’t bother knocking as she slides open my door and comes barrelling into my little room. The look of expectation on her face is actually quite adorable, I can tell she has run up the stairs (we live on the fifth floor) to see me as her cheeks blush a violent pink, her black bob lays wild and windswept across her face.

“Was it amazing? Were they as gorgeous as they look on TV? Did you speak to them? Did you hurt anybody-” I let her rattle off her questions and remain in relative silence until she runs out of breath and has to pause to inhale deeply. She holds her breath while she waits for my reply, her dark brown eyes full of all the excitement I would one day hope to feel about something.

“They were all very well behaved on set.” I reply. She lets out her breath slowly through pursed lips and stares at me blankly.

“That’s it?” She eventually asks. I shrug my shoulders. “Lia, are you actually working with Exo or were you lying to me?” I laugh at the look of disappointment on her face.

“No, I really do work with them! I just don’t have much to report back I’m afraid. It was highly uneventful.” I explain to her how my day went; turning up like I hadn’t been home the night before and slept in a bush, accidentally being rude to one of the members, standing around like a lost part and watching the photo shoot and finally after six hours of being useless I was sent home and told to head to the SM building the next day at 8 am. Eun Mi listens the whole time as though it were the most thrilling news she had ever heard in her life.

“Ai, really. I can’t believe you've seen them in the flesh. I can’t believe you were so informal with Chanyeol! Was he really tall? Was his voice as deep as it is on TV? Did you see Luhan?” Luhan is Eun Mi’s bias. If I were to walk into her room now I could tell you exactly how many posters of Luhan she has on her walls without even looking (it’s 22). Having seen his face so much in her room, I was expectant to see him, given that he was really the only one who I knew anything about. I took one look at the set and spotted him. I suppose he was quite handsome, in a very delicate way. I could see why Eun Mi liked him so much.

“He was quite cute.” I finally say. Eun Mi brings her hands up to her face and lets out a squeal. She then gets up and leaves the room without saying another word. I quickly head to the bathroom before Eun Mi locks herself in there for an hour and have a quick shower. I find myself thinking back to the shoot, running through all the faces of Exo in my head. I had received no introduction to them, everyone was too busy running about and they were too busy being preened over that I never got the chance, but I did spend a long time observing them. A few faces had jumped out at me, I couldn’t deny that fact. I didn’t know their names, but there were definitely a couple that I stared at for longer than was maybe socially acceptable. Unfortunately, one face keeps creeping back into the forefront of my mind, Chanyeol. I immediately feel my cheeks burn at the memory. He had so casually ridiculed me, and then had the gall to not even apologise. Were we in England, he would certainly have received some choice words from myself, none of which would be socially acceptable. But I knew it was not wise to upset someone who I am basically working for. I make a note to cry and hold my tongue the next time we run across each other.

            When I make my way to the SM building the next day, I am surprised to find a gaggle of girls waiting outside with their camera phones at the ready. They eye me suspiciously as I make my way past, flash my ID at one of the guards and head into the building. Today’s journey was a lot less eventful, I planned in advance should any unexpected delays occur, but nothing happened. I even left half an hour earlier than necessary just to be sure, meaning I arrive at the building at 7:30. I glance around the reception, quite unassuming and simple. I head over to the desk and flash my best smile at the man sat behind it.

“Oh, yes, hello.” I say to him and show him my ID. He smiles graciously at me stands up.

“If you head down the hall and take the elevator up to the third floor, you will be in room 308.” He says. I bow at him.

“Kamsahamnida.” I say and quickly hurry off. I find my way to the room with relative ease, only taking one wrong turn as soon as I came out of the elevator. I am still the first one to arrive at the room and sit down at a chair in the corner. The room is quite large, one big table in the middle with maybe twenty seats around it and then other seats dotted around the outside along the walls. One large window stretches across the room showing the similar looking building across the road. I take my phone out of my pocket and start flicking through my twitter feed. I am just retweeting a rather amusing tweet from my brother back in England when I hear the door open and three people come rushing in talking hurriedly in a language I immediately know is not Korean. After a moment of listening I recognise it as Mandarin. For some reason I freeze in my seat, hoping they won’t see me. The reason I do so is because I recognise from the set yesterday; dark blue suit, red suit and white suit. One of them, red suit, immediately catches my attention. Luhan. It takes them a few moments of hurried talking before the smallest one with spiky black hair to notice me.

“Ni hao.” He says to me, seeming as shocked to see me as I am to see him.

“Um, ni hao.” I reply, in the worst accent I could ever have managed. The others all turn to look at me in surprise. A long moment stretches out between us of surprised silence. “I don’t actually speak Mandarin.” I say to them, wanting to break the silence. I scan over their faces, trying to see if they understand.

“You are new?” One of them says with a heavy accent. I recognise him, white suit, as one of the members who caught my eye yesterday. I find myself unceremoniously blushing under his gaze and I quickly cough and look away to hide my shame.

“Yes. I only started yesterday.” I’m not sure if they understand me, so I try my best at translating it to Korean, hoping they understand that better.

“Oh, new girl!” Luhan says and then bows at me, the