9:00 AM, August 19.

“We have a new stylist?” I said while looking at our manager while I was holding a pan with freshly cooked eggs. “Hello! I’m Yewon! I’m the youngest. You can also call me Umji.” Directing my gaze at our visitor, I greeted in English as I felt that she was not a native.

“I’m Joon. Nice to meet you.” The older lady answered with a bright smile, confirming my initial assumption.

I felt it was a little weird that manager had to bring her to the dorm early in the morning to be introduced to us. Half of the members are still asleep for even though some of us had scheduled activities today, all of them were not until the afternoon. We’ve had many staff members but none of them were brought here to be acquainted with us. It was more common to get to know them for the first time at the agency.

“But manager, eonnies’ schedules are still in the afternoon. Did something change? Do you want me to wake all of them up?” I said while pushing a spoonful of scrambled eggs into my mouth.

“No. She is not a stylist. She will be staying with you from now on to train you in speaking in English.” Manager explained.

I did not find it peculiar for the foreign lady to be bringing a luggage. But having heard the manager words, I felt that the luggage did not contain cosmetics but her personal belongings.

I turned to him with a confused look. “She will be our English teacher? Or translator?” I asked as I guessed from the lady’s attire that she was not a teacher. I could not comprehend what he meant by her staying with us and training us in English. More so, I could not connect the fact that we had to meet her at this time of the day and on this day especially. I turned my head to my eonnies hoping they would give me at least a look of agreement with my confusion. But they were inattentive of our conversation as they continued to examine the smiling visitor in front of us.

“She is neither.” Manager said with a hint of uncertainty in his voice. It seemed to me that he was also unsure how to accurately explain this change which he said was part of the president’s plans for our group’s career path. “She will be with you most of the day, wherever you are and she will train you in conversational English. But she is not going to teach you the language. And she certainly will not be able to translate. She does not speak Korean.”

Listening to the manager’s explanation made me more puzzled. Finally, Sowon-eonnie and Yuna-eonnie’s faces indicated combined confusion and hesitation. I was particularly taken aback by the fact that she does not speak Korean but she will teach train us to be more versed in English. I knew that with the plans of the company to debut a new group, we will begin to focus on reaching out to international fans and learning English is critical for it to happen.  But the benefits of this unusual arrangement have not dawned on me just yet.

Not convinced that the entire situation made sense, I asked how the training will come about if the setting was this unconventional. And then I learned, after several minutes of baffling exchanges, that Joon-eonnie will be staying with us more or less all day and just talk to us in English. And since she is not familiar with our language, we will be forced to put effort into trying to communicate with her or eventually teaching her Korean so she could understand us better. Either way, the company thought we would gain a much-needed skill after her entire stay with us. His clarification started to enlighten me a little.

Knowing that our visitor did not understand Korean, the three of us started to question manager about her and the circumstances of her stay. I felt that our living arrangement will be affected having seen the luggage that came with her. We learned that aside from her job to coach us, she will also be helping us with our everyday undertakings. It was a relief that finally the president decided to let us have someone who could help, after all these years of convincing us to be self-reliant and do everything on our own. The three of us agreed that we could use some help. Nevertheless, we knew that it will be futile to resist this change if it came from the top management.  We trust that the company had this in their plan and knew that it will be for the best.

Diverting our attention to our perplexed visitor who remained silent and patiently listening to our discussion, we bowed to her again to welcome her formally into our home. We all thought that she looked kind and polite but mysterious. Her manner of talking made me assume that she did not belong to the working class. She came all the way from the United States coincidentally a week after the company president came back from his visit to the same part of the world. She must really be hired to play a big role in the company’s plan. Yuna-eonnie, who also knows basic conversational English started to ask her the expected demographic inquires.

It did not really show that she was 5 years senior our oldest member. She looked younger for her age but she spoke like she was older. She liked books and drawing, and has a younger brother. She likes to be dressed comfortably, hence her very boyish attire. She said she liked traveling that she went from state to state to discover which one appealed to her the most just to realize she did not want to stay in one place. The conversation went on. I noticed how considerate she was as she spoke to us slowly ensuring that we would understand her. After listening to her briefly, I felt calm around her presence recognizing that she had a warm and interesting aura. Very interesting that everyone’s gaze was pulled to her direction, like magnetism, when she spoke.

Manager-oppa interrupted, who was now speaking struggling in English, informing us that a convertible electric sofa bed will be brought in soon and that is where Joon-eonnie will be sleeping if she was to stay here. The idea of a new and modern piece of furniture in our house made Sowon-eonnie jump in excitement.

“DAEBAK! I like that sofa! Eonnie, you don’t mind sharing it with us when we watch TV? Right?” Sowon-eonnie exclaimed as she jumped toward our visitor to link her arm with hers, not noticing that she spoke to her in our language making Joon-eonnie give a surprised bewildered look.

“Omo! Omo! Omo! Umji-ah! How do you say that in English?? Eotteoke??” She started moving her legs to a disorganized stomping. Sowon-eonnie’s excitement faded into anxiety and indescribable agony.

Witnessing the sudden rise of panic in our leader’s face and the seemingly developing headache in her, Yuna-eonnie and I burst into an enormous laughter. We looked at each other with a smile well-disposed that this will be a worthwhile training especially for our leader.