He was going to lose his mind. In all of his twenty-two years of existence, he has never been lost. Not ever. He prided himself in having a, what he referred to as the, ‘internal navigation system’ which enabled him to always find his way. Or that was what he thought.

Kim Jongin, an ordinary man in his twenty, was utterly ed. He was lost in bloody Seoul, on top of that, his phone ran out of battery and he couldn’t for the life of him remember his cousin’s number to call using a pay phone.

He cursed under his breath.

It was all his parents’ fault. If only they taught him the Korean language as he was growing up. Usually children were expected to know both of their parents’ languages. Jongin would have wanted to be bilingual. Even his friend Sehun, who was born in London, knew Korean for heaven’s sake. Well, Sehun was full Korean unlike himself who has an English father and a Korean mother but that was beside the point.

His parents met when his father represented the annual visit of his firm to its partner company in Korea. His mother worked in the Korean firm and he took notice of her. Long story short, after one month of courting then nine months being inside his mother’s womb, Jongin was born into this world.

He got told that his mother wanted to give birth to him in the same hospital everyone in the family was born in, therefore they didn’t move in to London straight away when she got pregnant. When she was strong enough to travel and all the right documents were ready, there they went, to London.

Where Jongin got spoilt rotten because his father was the only child and his grandparents had been waiting for a grandkid in ages.

And, why wasn’t he bilingual again? Oh right, because everyone at home just spoilt him rotten they did not want to give him a hard time learning another language. Secondary schools required students to learn another language aside from English, be it French, German or Spanish but none of those was bloody Korean. He remembered an option being Japanese. Why wasn’t Korean an option as well. He would have gladly taken that.

Now he was lost and have no way of getting his way back. The original plan was for them to be at the Seoul Tower at 11.30 AM. But then, he slept in and his wit of a cousin didn’t even bother wait for him because there was a girl he wanted to impress. So he left Jongin a note saying that he went out first and just to meet him there. It was supposed to be Jongin’s holiday, him getting toured around, not impressing some harpy. He scoffed and got ready.

Jongin wore a light cream coloured jumper and black and white flannel skinny jeans. He glanced at himself once in the mirror, satisfied. He went out.

He checked the time, it was twelve noon; he went out confidently thinking he could get there. What could possibly go wrong. He was confident of his ‘internal nav system’ it always worked at home. He had a few examples too, like that one time when he was five. He accidentally let go of his mother’s hand in a busy supermarket but in the end he found his way to her. And that one time in 6^th class, he accidentally rode in the wrong bus but he found his way home in the end. Navigating Seoul would be easy-peasy. Or so he thought.

Now that he was in a bloody foreign country only did he realise that his ‘internal nav system’ only worked perfectly because he was familiar with London, the place he grew up in.

This is the story of how he found himself lost in a busy Seoul street an hour later. He was lost. my bloody life.

Defeated, he sat in one of the benches and thought of all the Korean words he knew of. If he was being honest he could count how many of them with his fingers, no more. He thought vigorously of the word for ‘where’ he came up with “eodi”. He wished that was right. He knew that to make it polite he would have to add in “yo” therefore, “eodiyo.” That was the word that was going to save his . Oediyo.

He groaned before standing up, ready to ask anyone who was willing to help.  He made some attempts to ask people but he failed each time. He wasn’t exactly sure why the sudden shyness came from. He wasn’t a shy person growing up but, the fact that he had Korean blood in him and he didn’t know a thing about the language was probably why.

He sat back down on the bench he previously occupied. He couldn’t do it. He was planning on just waiting for this cousin to realise he was missing and for him to file in a report and a search and rescue team would be looking for him eventually. That was a good plan. He was so going to do that.

Then he saw him, a man wearing a two-piece suit; briefcase was in his right hand, walking among the crowd. The man looked like he was around Jongin’s age. The man was either from a job interview or he was on lunch break, Jongin thought.

Jongin’s eyes were drawn to him for some reason. He would have looked away if he could, but he didn’t even as the man got closer to him. At a closer look the man had wide expressive eyes, cute button nose and lips that were so pink he probably applied lip balm to it on an hourly basis.

He stood up before the man passed by him completely. , he cursed. He forgot the word for excuse me. He knew “chogiyo” but wasn’t that an impolite way of saying it? ing hell, why did Korea have so many rules about the language? He was going to pop a vein.

“Sod it,” he murmured to himself.

“Excuse me,” he started, before remembering where he was. “Um, chogiyo.” He sheepishly corrected himself. The man in the suit stopped and raised both his eyebrows at him, not in a judging way, instead he looked shocked. God he looked cute.

“Um. Tourist.” He added quickly, hoping the man would understand. Fortunately, the man showed comprehension by giving him a nod.

“Thank baby Jesus,” he breathed a sigh of relief. His luck hadn’t fully run out. “Um, eodiyo. Um, Seoul Tower?” he asked, straight to the point, not wanting to keep the man from wherever he was heading to. But, Jongin would gladly keep him if the man allowed him.

Then the man started talking and Jongin felt all his energy leave from his body. The man started talking in rapid Korean that he had no hopes of understanding. Although the man had a nice voice. He could listen to that voice all day.

Jongin needed to stop these inappropriate thoughts, god dammit. He was lost. He didn’t need this right now.

Jongin made an X using his arms, “Sorry. No.” he pleadingly said. Wishing the ground would swallow him whole. He must have looked like a right now. The man was kindly explaining to him where to go and he just went and interrupted him.

“Um, lost. Show. Jebal,” he said hastily. His eyes widened when he remembered that that wasn’t a polite way of saying please, neither was everything he has been saying so far but that was beside the point. “Juseyo! Juseyo,” he nearly screamed at the man’s face.

When faced with stressful situations it was Jongin’s habit to rambling on. “, this is so embarrassing. If only I didn’t sleep in. What the . I came here to Korea to blow off steam because dad has been pressuring me to inherit the company and I’m not ing ready god dammit and this is what I get. Lost in a foreign country and I don’t even know the sodding language. Why wasn’t I taught the language for ’s sake.” He paused to take a breath.

“And the bloke who’s trying to help me is very handsome. But probably thinks I’m an incompetent idiot now who couldn’t even make proper sentences. If I am to date again after the last one – ing Colin who dumped me for Bradley because he’s what? Blonde? What’s so good about blondes anyway? Jesus. Yeah, I would totally ask someone like him. He also has the perfect height for me where I can just swoop in and kiss his forehead without bending down. God he’s cute.” He stopped his tirade when he saw that the man was looking at him with wide eyes.

“Nice, now he probably thinks I’m crazy. God well I must be, rambling on when stressed who does this. I need to stop, . But it’s not like he understands. I should do this more often. Spill all my thoughts to people who don’t understand me.” He sighed, defeated. He didn’t even want to go to Seoul Tower anymore, he just wanted to go home.

“But would you really? Date me,” asked a voice.

“Of course, why not you’re decent looking and gorgeous and you really look good in a suit,” was his immediate answer.

Jongin snapped his mouth shut. He forgot how to breathe. With wide eyes, he focused on the man who was smiling like Jongin just told him the solution to world hunger.

“Wait, you,” he started when he could talk again.

“Yes, me,” the man teased.

“You understand!” he exclaimed, outraged.

The man just gave him a toothy grin, “Rule number one when you’re lost. Ask them if they can speak your language.”

Jongin felt his face slowly heating up. Bollocks. Chicken . What the .

“So are you going to Seoul Tower or are you bringing me on a date?” he started walking off and to follow was all that Jongin could do.

The man glanced back over his shoulder, “I’m Kyungsoo by the way.”

“I’m Jongin, Kim Jongin,” he answered dumbfounded.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Jongin Kim Jongin.”

a/n: i'm not from the UK so the reference to the schooling system might be A LOT wonky. im sorry hhhahahaha

tell me what you think :"D