Once I’m off the bus I flag down a taxi driver from the station. The man is stoic and only asks for the address of where I’m wanting to go. I read out the name of the building in the dim light of the taxi and just like that the man types something into a GPS, then puts the car into drive.

The skylines can only be described as incredible.

The lights come in different shapes and colors as they bounce off of the little droplets on the car’s window. I stare in awe the longer we drive, stopping for periods of time due to the heavy traffic, even at this time of night. The city itself is so alive, with people sitting in 24 hour cafes with papers splayed in front of them, to street vendors still selling freshly made tteokbokki to drunk passerbys. Men and women in businessuites walk in a hurried pace to make it to their desired destination in time, may it be to a restaurant for some coworker bonding time or maybe back home from a late shift.

My thoughts and wondering eyes are brought back to the inside of the taxi when I hear the end of something the driver muttered out.

“Sorry, what did you-”

“That’ll be 5,800 won.” The emotionless taxi driver says as he puts the car in park.

To say I’m surprised at the amount would be an understatement. The bus station wasn't even that far, I just decided not to walk to the academy because I didn’t want to get lost in the busy Seoul streets.

“O-oh, um here.” I hand the exact amount to the driver and he promptly places the money into a compartment and then presses a button for the trunk of the car.

I quickly open the door and just as I get onto the curb the driver has already placed my luggage onto the sidewalk and away from the bustling streets. He then lets out a bland ‘Have a nice night’ and hurriedly jumps back into his vehicle.

I call out a ‘thank you’, but it only meets deaf ears as the driver is already pulling out into traffic when I get the chance to speak up.

You know that queasy feeling you get inside your stomach when you’re about to take a major exam or maybe go on your first date or perhaps you’re like me and are surrounded by big and new surroundings that overwhelm you to the very core?

The feeling is a little taboo for me.

Some might call me a liar, their argument being ‘Well what about stage fright? Pre-dance jitters or the fear of failing.’ Nope. Dance has never made me feel this way, in fact I’m probably the most calm and collected while I’m on stage, if not extremely excited.

But this is a whole new ball game.

With my luggage in one hand, a duffle bag in the other and a bag on my back, I make my way to the building with double glass doors and a grand sign reading ‘Student Dormitories’. I take mental note of my surroundings and the buildings near me, they’re all too foreign to me.

I let go of my luggage and pull it to my side and out of the way of passing strangers. I give one of the handles a rough pull and-

“Locked?” I try again, but this time with a push and the doors- again- won’t budge. “What the?” I look around the handle and notice the automatic lock and then it hits me. Why would they have these doors open to the public like that... Of course you have to be rung in or have a chip key chain to enter the building.

Looking back through the glass doors I stare helplessly at the interior which is, what looks to be, some type of office area with a service window, probably for a receptionist- who coincidentally isn’t there. On the other side is a large seating area, furnished with modern looking couches, coffee tables, and armchairs. A little further into the corridor I can make out a couple of doors, some closed and a few opened with lights streaming out. And the last thing that catches my attention is a nicely sized staircase, which is all completely empty of any people.

Amazing, I think sarcastically to myself.

How can this place not have a single person walking around? I get that it’s just a little late, but the streets where I’m currently standing and getting quite uncomfortable are just bustling with pure life.

I let out another tired sigh and lean my forehead on the, surprisingly clean, glass.

I’m just about to close my heavy eyes in defeat as a handful of boys around my age come out of one of the open doors from earlier. Two of them are laughing and flailing their arms in weird movements, while the third one looks like he could punch the both of them. I make a mental note to stay clear of that one in particular.

“Excuse me!” I quickly drop some of my bags onto the ground and begin to knock my knuckles onto the chilled glass repeatedly. I successfully catch their attention just as they’re all at the base of the stairs. The two shorter ones look at me with curiosity and the taller continues to walk up the staircase.

“Hey, you three! Can one of you open the door!” I make vague gestures to myself and then to the security system on the handles of the door, signaling them that I need help getting in. I watch with hopeful eyes as one of the shorter boys grabs the wrist of the unhappy camper and pulls him back to the base where he begins to converse with the latter. The taller then rolls his eyes and lets out what looks to be a sigh.

Alarms start going off in my head as the scariest of the three begins to walk towards me, looking more pissed than he did just seconds ago.

Remember what your brother told you. Just keep calm and be polite.

I step back a little as one of the glass doors open up just enough for the stranger to stick half of his body outside. “Are you lost?”

Now that the stranger is in front of me, I’m able to get a better look at the boy. He’s just slightly taller than I am and he’s definitely slimmer, but you can tell by the t-shirt he’s currently sporting that he has lean muscles that have been built with hard training and disciplined diets. He has jet black hair that is wavy and parted slightly down the middle, you can tell that little to no effort has been put into styling the dark locks by how natural it looks. His face is probably his best feature though, it’s soft and sharp all at the same time, mixed with round and piercing, eyes.

In conclusion: he’s unfairly handsome.

“The night schools and tutoring buildings for underdeveloped learning are four buildings down,-” He sticks his arm through the crack of the door to point lazily down one of the streets to the right of me. “-that way.”

I give him a tight smile and brush aside the comment. “Oh, I get it, you must think I don’t go here.” He then leans up against the door looking bored of the exchange.

“Funny. That’s exactly what I thought.” He answers back lazily.

I clear my throat at the awkward atmosphere, the only thing that can be heard is the passing cars, faraway conversations, and the low hum of some nearby music. “Uhm, anyways, my bus left later than expected and since I’m all the way from Changwon, you know, it took a while-” I’m rudely cut off by the handsome stranger as he begins to close the door.

What the hell?!

“W-w-wait, hey listen, I have the letter saying I go here!” I roughly jam my body tightly in between the closing door. I’m now half inside the building, half hanging out into the streets of Seoul. The pissy stranger is not pushing too hard, but it's enough pressure to prevent me from completely opening the door.

“Dude!” He looks at me with bewilderment and I guess a bit of disgust.

“I seriously do go here!”

“Dongmin, let him pull out the letter at least.” The shortest of the three says calmly behind the stranger. Not really sure why he - or even the other guy - thinks this whole situation is normal. I’m literally squished halfway in between a door for a dance academy at around eleven thirty at night.

Hastily, I bring back one of my hands that was previously latching onto the door frame and stuff it inside my backpack that sits beside my feet. I bring back the correct piece of paper I had gotten with my acceptance package along with my ID.

“See!” I shove the unfolded letter into the strangers face and watch as his eyes sweep across the words in surprise. “And look, here's my ID with my name and picture.”

A sigh and then, “Dongmin, let the kid in!” comes from the inside.

‘Dongmin’ rolls his eyes and pushes the glass door all the way open and I turn to quickly grab my rolly suitcase and duffel, along with my ped backpack. Surprisingly, the latter holds the door open as I enter the warm building. “Welcome to hell.” He sarcastically whispers.

Wow this guy is a piece of work. I bitingly think. You would assume, with a face like his, that he would be just a little bit nicer or maybe a bit more inviting somehow.

Continuing into the building I make my way over to the two shorter boys and by closer inspection, they both surprisingly look older, not by much, but enough to know that the two have a few years on me.

The shortest of the three has a sharp jawline and a strong build, probably built by countinusas practices’ and hard work, like most students here. He also has a caring vibe basically floating off of him. His hair is a mousy brown- clearly dyed, and is quite messy.

The one that is just slightly taller than the other could basically be described in one word, bright. He also has bleached and dyed hair, resulting in honey colored locks, which is surprisingly styled into freeform waves; at least one of them cares about their looks. He also has a curvy, yet lean build.

“So, you must be a first year. I’m Park Jinwoo,” The brunette begins to speak. “this is Kim Myungjun, we’re both third years, and you’ve already met prince charming himself, Lee Dongmin, he’s a second year.” He cheerfully concludes.

I give a slight bow, which is rendering to be difficult due to the bag in my hands and on my back, but it seems that the three don’t mind. “I’m Moonbin, nice to meet all of you.”

“Do you have your dorm key and number?” Jinwoo asks while slinging his arm around Myungjun in a laid back manner. “It should have came in the mail.” My eyes just barely notice the blonde lean into the touch. “If you don’t I can go look for Leo, he usually runs the desk over there for night shifts.”

“No, no, no, I have my key! Although I wish he would have been there to let me inside.” I pull the keychain that holds a chip and an actual key, out from my bag and squint down at the fine print. “Hmm, room 245 in hall C.” I look back up towards the three expectedly.

“We’ll take you there!” Myungjun says happily while gesturing to follow and just like that he and Jinwoo head towards the staircase. Following behind them closely, we only make it about five steps forward until a whiney voice cuts us off.

“Guys, I have been up since five this morning!” Dongmin protest with his arms crossed. “I don’t want to go…and I still need to foam roll my achilles before I go to bed.” I raise my eyebrows at his bitterness, but a pang of guilt also strikes my gut at the comment about his achilles.

When someone mentions anything about foam rolling their achilles it usually means they somehow messed the tendon up and I can’t even begin to imagine the type of pain this guy deals with - bitter attitude be damned.

“You’re going, unless you don’t want the ice cream I had bought?” With his arm still loosely around the shorter, Jinwoo calmly bribes the raven haired man-child. “MJ and I can eat the whole thing by ourselves, anyways.” Said boy nods his head, agreeing wholeheartedly.

One long sigh and then, “Whatever, I’ll go.”

●●

“So what are you in?” Jinwoo speaks up as we continue towards the dorm area with the latter and Myungjun leading the way with Dongmin and I walking three steps behind.

The whole place is pretty modern in terms of decoration and technology, - similar to how the lobby area looked - something I am definitely not used to. On our way through hall A we pass up multiple rooms and seating areas. Some of the little plates above or beside the doors read Practice Room A3 or Gym A7 and we even pass up a room that reads Study Room A9. I can’t believe this building is just for housing.

“In?” I ask back, confused by the sudden question, too distracted by my new surroundings.

“Like Hip Hop, Jazz, etcetera?” Oh, dance. “you look like you can do some pretty sick B-boying.” He glances over his shoulder and lifts a questioning eyebrow.

I shyly laugh at the assumption. “Oh, no. Actually, I’m in Ballet as my main course and Lyrical as my understudy.”

“Hm, you don’t strike me as the Ballet type, if we’re being honest, but hey! You can’t judge a book by it’s cover!” Funny, that seems to be a recurring theme tonight.

“Dongmin’s also in Lyrical, but you won’t see him much, because he’ll be in the second year classes.” Myungjun adds in. I’m not too surprised that the salty dancer takes lyrical, actually I can already tell that he probably has it for his main course.

“What do you guys take?” I ask out of general curiosity as we make our way up to the next floor and down hall B.

“I take Hip Hop for my main course and understudy Modern.” Jinwoo answers with pride. The courses suit him perfectly.

“Contemporary for main and then Jazz.” Myungjun begins. “Although I was going to take ballet when I first started at the academy, but I changed my mind last minuet and decided to go for contemporary. Thank god they let me redo my audition, said I had something special about me.” He adds in the extra information and I nod my head eagerly along, wanting to know more details, but he doesn't say anything more of the situation.

“Lyrical and contemporary.” I hear Dongmin quietly say from beside me. I knew it.

“So you three are all friends?” I muse outloud to no one in particular.

“Yep. Well, no.” Myungjun begins happily and then hesitantly ends with a bashful look.

Beside me Dongmin lets out a hushed chuckle. “Those two are dating, how you didn’t notice is beyond me, but yes I’m friends with them.” I eye the trio with a surprised face. Skinship amongst dancers is completely normal so I didn’t think twice about the two earlier. I have nothing against the two, in fact I'm similar to them considering I'm biual, but none of them need to know that.

“Are you- you know, gay to?” I don't mean to ask the ticking time bomb that is the boy beside me, but the question slips out just as quick. I'm about to reason with him about how I didn't mean to ask when-

“Yes and no you’re not my type.” Dongmin doesn't even look at me, deciding to keep his face set forward, as if the question didn't even bother the older.

I stop mid step and watch the three continue forward. My eyes burn holes in the back of the tallers head, at the snide remark. “I wasn't going to ask that....” I let out a silent curse and stride back towards to trio.

We make are way up two different flights of stairs and corridors in comfortable silence before we stop in front of room 245.

“Alrighty, here’s your room!” Myungjun practically beams. Beside him Jinwoo brings a finger to his own lips and stage whispers out a chaste ‘Babe, people are sleeping’.

The shorter of the three turns to me with a laid back smile. “You can meet us tomorrow morning at 6, down in the lobby. We’re going to show another first year around before classes start, if you want to tag along that's fine.”

My tired eyes become saucers at his kindness. “Oh really?” Two of the three boys nod their heads in ernest. “Yeah, that’ll be awesome, thank you Jinwoo.”

The brunette smiles warmly and removes an arm around his partner to hold his hand instead. “No problem, night Moonbin.” All three begin to turn, waving lazily as a half-assed farewell - which is completely understandable for this time of night. I give my own little wave and enter inside my dorm.

Once the lights flicker on I first notice the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony, looking out towards the sleepless city. Next is the twin sized bed companied with a clean mattress, and situated in one corner of the room. A desk sits right across, accustomed with a wooden chair that looks like it came as part of a set. Above the desk is a reasonably sized cork board with a handful of multi colored push pins that are still tacked on. There’s also a tiny bathroom containing a standing shower, a toilet, towel rack, sink and one of those mirror/medicine cabinet combos. And beside me stands an even smaller dresser, but I’ve already come to the conclusion that I’m completely in love with the place.

When I turn around to toe off my sneakers at the door I jump back in surprise at the full length mirror hung onto the door.

“I’m too tired for this.”

Once I’m changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, I haphazardly place my bed sheets on and toss a pillow onto the growing pile of blankets. Before I close my eyes for the night, I give my parents a call, only to let them know I’ve made it to my destination and a quick goodnight also slips out, cutting the conversation short so I can get some sort of sleep tonight.

●●

I run just a tad late the next morning.

I end up sleeping in a little later than I was planning to and also forget my duffle bag in the room, which contains my ballet shoes, a sweat towel, water bottle, a few snacks, and basically everything and anything that was to help me survive through the day. So I had to run back and grab the damned thing.

The black sweatpants that cover my dancing tights threaten to slip off my hips as I run toward the main lobby completely out of breath, having just jogged down three corridors and four flights of stairs. Why the hell would anyone place the stairway for each floor on opposite ends?

Whoever designed this building definitely has a special place in hell designated just for them.

Rounding the corner of the lobby, I notice Myungjun and Jinwoo occupying a love seat while Dongmin opts to lean his weight on one of the two the armrests. All three are immersed in what looks to be Jinwoo telling a very compelling story, but once I’m in earshot he quiets and all eyes are on me.

I begin to spill apologies in between breaths, while tightening my drawstrings around my hips and suddenly realize how just as unkempt the trio looks as well.

Jinwoo is sporting a pair of basketball shorts and a tank top draped over with a jacket, basically screaming comfort. Myungjun on the other hand is dressed as if he’s ready to go to bed, wearing a pair of jogging sweatpants and a blue fitted tee that left little to the imagination of his pectorals. Lastly, Dongmin is, deadass, clothed in black tights that reach his shin and a white hoodie that reads ‘sunshine’ in red letters.

“Nice hoodie.” I conceal my laugh with sarcasm while the taller lazily gives me the middle finger and begins to scroll through his phone.

“Don’t worry dude, you’re on time. We're just gonna wait for the other first year and then we can head off.” Myungjun chirps out, which leads me to wonder how the hell he can be so bright at this time in the morning.

“MJ, where did you say you met him again?” Dongmin huffs, tone bored. “If he’s already late, why don’t we just leave him…” He then looks towards me. “I mean, Moonbeam is already here, so there’s really no point in waiting for the other kid.” The taller scuffs his worn converses on the polished tile.

“It’s Moonbin.” I mumble, unimpressed by the petty jab.

“Dongmin, it’s only 6:03, cut the kid some slack~” Myungjun basically coos toward latter’s sour attitude, probably out of spite. He then pauses and lifts his hand under his chin, thinking. “Well, he was pretty ditzy, I mean the kid’s major is in Acrobatics and you know how those people are…”

After about four minutes of people watching I hear rapid stomping coming from down the hall, down where I saw the three boys emerge from last night.

Suddenly, a tall and lanky boy halts to a stop once he notices the four of us sat in the lobby. He then leans forward, placing his hands onto his knees. He’s sporting a pink hoodie and tights that reach the top of his knees, leaving me to believe that this must be the other first year, who’s taking acro.

“Sorry...for...being...late!” The boy says in between puffs of breath. He drops his own navy colored duffle, basically a copy and paste of the one sitting in front Dongmin’s feet, the only differing factor of the two being the cluster of keychains dangling from the younger’s bag. “I got stuck in the elevator.” He states after a final deep breath.

“Wait, we have an elevator?!” I can’t believe I just used all those stairs and last night when I had my suitcase I had to lug it up so many flights!

No one answers, me instead we all watch as Myungjun’s face lights up while standing to greet the newcomer.

“Guys, this is Yoon Sanha. Sanha this is Moonbin, he’s also a freshman and in lyrical!” I give the other boy a small wave, which he returns shyly. “This is Park Jinwoo, my boyfriend.” Sanha nods his head slightly and blush begins to pepper his round cheeks, I’m unable to decide if it’s from the running he just accomplished or maybe the bold statement coming from Myungjun. “And this chipper guy is, Lee Dongmin!” I look between the two and notice the younger produce even more blush, ears and neck completely pink.

Trust me on this one Sanha, Dongmin may be unfairly handsome, but his personality is about as appealing as a puddle of mud on a hot day. Don’t believe his hoodie!

“He’s also in lyrical.” I watch as Sanha’s adam's apple bobs, up and down, and remind myself to warn the younger about the second year student later.

“Okay! Now that we’re all introduced, how ‘bout we start with the tour?” Jinwoo announces while clapping his hands once together.

This will be one interesting morning.

Comments are always welcomed ^^ Next chapter will be up soon! Thank you for reading <3