As the airplane took off, Ava leaned back in her seat and let out a relieved sigh. It had taken two months to get everything organized, including getting her passport and a work permit. According to Mr. Jung, this photographer job was to last a year, so it had taken a while to get everything in order for her to be absent that long.

She still couldn't believe she was going to be the personal photographer for Monsta X. She had went to KCON in Los Angeles and seen them but had never in a million years thought that just a year later she was going to meet them.

She felt like she needed to pinch herself to be sure she wasn't really back in her bedroom in Georgia. It felt like any moment now one of her brothers was going to barge into her room and yell that breakfast was ready, and she would realize she had been asleep, and this was all just a dream.

She still couldn't get over the fact that out of the blue, some random stranger saw her work and contacted her boss to try and hire her. And even more crazy, was the fact that said stranger was from South Korea. Georgia, United States could not be thought of as anywhere near South Korea.

How does someone from that far away even see the minor-trying-to-become-major travel magazine, Travel It Up, she worked for? 

Almost as strange as all that was, was the fact that Mr. Isaacs seemed perfectly fine with losing her for a year. She really couldn't wrap her mind around that fact. What employer invited another prospective employer to your place of business and let them ask your employee to work for them?

Mr. Isaacs had told her she would basically be on hiatus for the year she would be gone. When that year was up, she would simply come back and take up where she had left off.

Ava found the whole situation very weird but seeing how her love for all things Korean just seemed to grow exponentially as time went on, she was not complaining.

Now, at age twenty-five, she had been obsessed with KPop, KDrama and everything in between for five years.

She had decided early in her obsession that she wanted to learn Korean, so she had looked into signing up for a Korean class at her university, which just luckily happened to have one. She had taken Spanish in high school and didn't retain very much of it, so didn't have high hopes of being able to learn and remember Korean which was 100 times harder than Spanish, but she had put her mind to learning it.

During that process, she had found listening to music and watching dramas helped to strengthen her resolve. Especially since she was able to actually understand some of what she was hearing after a few months.

Her parents thought she was crazy for wanting to learn a language that was so far from their American heritage, which since America was such a melting pot of backgrounds, included ancestors from England, Ireland, France and a little Native American thrown in. And those were the only ones they knew of. Who knew what other countries they had links to? She liked knowing where some of her roots were from, but she was American born and bred and she was simply American.

So, when her parents brought up the subject that their family as about as far from being Asian as they possibly could be, she pointed out that they weren't any nearer to being Hispanic, yet she had already learned Spanish.

Her parents conceded her point, and didn't put up a fuss anymore about her learning Korean. They hadn't really had an issue with her learning it, they were just really startled about her sudden interest in an Asian culture.

Her siblings had a totally different but even worse reaction than their parents.

Being, the fourth child out of five, had its drawbacks, especially when she was the only girl, and her older brothers were extremely protective of anything that concerned her. Though, she really didn't understand why their protective sides needed to come out when the only thing she was doing was signing up for another class.

Eventually, she got it through their thick skulls that she wasn't planning on going and finding a Korean guy to go and date. How in the world had they gotten that impression from her wanting to sign up for a language course?! She didn't know, but what she did know was that her brothers were crazy!

She knew they really loved her and were just worried about her though, so she didnt get too upset at them.

After a while, everyone got used to hearing music and shows that weren't in English coming from her room and eventually it just seemed normal.

The reactions to her moving to Korea for a year though, now those were horrible.

Every little thing that could possibly go wrong entered her mom's head and came out in emphatic No's and Over my dead body responses whenever she thought of something.

Finally, her mother actually voiced some of her fears which Ava did her best to calm.

Mr. Jung had already explained that she would be staying in the same building where Monsta X had their dorm which would have excellent security, so she would be perfectly safe, as long as she used common sense like she would with any large city if she went outside without someone.

She also pointed out that she knew Korean so it wasn't as if she would be one of those tourists who couldn't find their way around due to a language barrier.

After her mother was finally over being terrified for her daughter and starting to see how good this would look on her resume, Ava knew that all that was left was for her to get her brothers to realize the same. Her father was slightly laidback and usually let her mother be the one to freak out over things. On occasion if it was something truly awful, he would take over, but for the most part he just stayed in the background.

Her brother Blake made the most fuss. At 30, he was the oldest and tried to always be levelheaded and responsible. Some of that probably came from the fact he was a doctor and had a lot of patients he had to be responsible for.

Eventually, she wore down his arguments and he too, saw what a chance this was for his little sister. KPop was really beginning to be known around the world and his little sister was going to meet and get close to a KPop group. 

All in all, getting Blake's approval was relatively easy.

Evan, 28, and Rhett 27, were even easier. They both expressed concern about her being in a country that she didn't know and being so far from home, but when she explained all that Mr. Jung had told her, they relaxed and got excited for her too.

Shane, at 22, she hardly considered as even allowed to have an opinion in this. After all, he was the baby and she had three years on him.

He didn't put up a fuss, he just seemed surprised that she was going that far away. 

She jolted out of her thoughts at a sudden announcement over the intercom system. Apparently she had been thinking for over two hours. It was breakfast time.

She hungrily ate the food she was given before deciding she was tired and settling down to take a nap. There was still a long time before they would arrive.

Korea, here I come, she thought.

Monsta X......are you ready for me?

 ~~~~~~

Hey. Thank you to my two subscribers :) I'm sorry if this first chapter is kind of boring. I wanted to explain Ava's background. Now, that that's out of the way, the next chapter will be more interesting, I promise!

I will try to post one chapter each week if I am able. 

Happy Reading!!