Starting college is not easy for anyone, neither it is for Aeris. 

Aeris is a common girl, 18 years old starting her new life in college. It’s a new chapter in her life that would come with new challenges and surprises. In the first day of college, Aeris stood still in front of a big wall filled with papers and the list of students and their respective classrooms. She was confused, there was many people walking by and also struggling to read the list with many names and different courses and numbers. To her lucky there was someone standing next to her who seemed to be even more confused than she was. Maybe it was her shot. Maybe she should try to socialize a little.

“Are you also struggling to find your name?” she asks softly.

The guy standing there looks away from the papers for a moment to look over her with the same confused expression.  “I am not from this country… I can’t read it” he tells her.

Aeris immediately gasps surprised and nods. She always wanted to meet someone from overseas, because she never had this opportunity of traveling before. “Really? What’s your name? Maybe I can help…” 

The boy smiled thankfully “My name is Huang Zitao I moved from China a couple of months ago to study here.”

Aeris blinked a little confused and squints her eyes thinking of something. “You have a Chinese name right? In that case we need to search for ‘Zitao’ instead of ‘Huang’” she mentions and look over the list, searching for his name. “Here!” she exclaims “You are in the room 1485.” Aeris smiles to the boy victoriously. “Oh! You found it! Thank you so much.” he exclaims.

 He smiles back at her and opens his bag looking for a paper so he could write the number of the room. Zitao suddenly looked up widening his eyes “I didn’t ask you- What is your name? We also need to find your room!” 

“Oh you are right, I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Aeris.” She quickly replies.

“Aeris? That’s a beautiful name!” Zitao comments “You can just call me Tao by the way!” He looks over the list and tries to read them again. “Ae - ris. It sounds like an ‘E’.. ‘E’ is around…” he travels his finger over the list close to the middle of it.

Aeris couldn’t help but giggle at her new friend confusion. “Tao, My name starts with an “A”. Ae-ris.” She smiles widely as she noticed Tao chuckling and moving his finger upwards close to the names with ‘C’. “You are close” she comments as he finally find the names with ‘A’.

“Alicia… Amanda… Annie…Aeris!! Here you are!” He exclaims happily. “And you are in the classroom… 1485 and 1458? Why do you have to go to two classrooms?”

“What?” Aeris tilts her head curiously and notices a asterisk next to the classrooms. “Wait there is more Tao!” she points to it end reads in the bottom of the paper. “Students of this course will have to occasionally change classrooms due the latest schedule changes” She reads out loud. “Well, I guess some classes we will still have together, but for some I’ll have to change classrooms…” she trails off.

“But we will still see each other right?” Tao asks urgently. Aeris giggles at the boy’s question. After all he’s a new student just like her with not many friends and to add to that he is also not from this country. It should be scary for him, she thinks.

“Sure, we will Tao. Don’t worry about it, I got your back!” Aeris smiled reassuringly.

Zitao and Aeris headed to the classroom 1485 first, arriving there they meet with the other students talking to each other already, maybe some of them already knew each other, and some were building a friendship. Aeris sat on a desk on the second roll next to a window and Zitao takes a seat right next to her.

“Do you know anyone in here?” he whispers to her somehow shy. “Everyone is already talking to each other…” 

“And aren't we talking to each other as well?” Aeris chuckles and looks around the classroom. “Not really… We will have to make some friends.” 

A group of friends suddenly walks into the classroom talking loudly and Tao snaps his head to them waving happily. Aeris looked at him surprised, she hasn't asked him if he knew anyone and apparently, he does.

“Zitao!” One of the guys called for him loudly. “Where were you man? I thought we would meet up on the front door!” Another one of them exclaimed. “Ah man, that’s true- I got distracted and confused…” Tao frowns and then widens his eyes. “Oh! Guys, please meet my new friend, she’s called Aeris. With an ‘A’! Isn’t it great? She helped me out!” he exclaims. “I also learnt that ‘A’ is the first letter in the alphabet!”

“With an ‘A’?” The first one from before asked. “Of course it’s the first letter! Alphabet itself already starts with ‘A’” A tall looking guy replied back.

“Uhm.. Hi?” Aeris who felt a little out of place, said.

The boys turned to her and smiles apologetically for the mess they’ve created. Aeris listened carefully to their accents, and some of them seemed to be from China just as Tao. One of the boys stepped ahead and introduced himself offering a friendly smile.

“Hi, it is nice to meet you, Aeris. My name is Kris. I’m glad that you met Tao and helped his way here.”

“Oh yeah, no problem at all. He told me he’s not from here, so I’ve imagined how hard it must be. I mean, it’s hard for everyone and if you are from another country must be even harder.” Aeris smiled then tilted her head awkwardly “I mean— it is not impossible to figure out the place by yourself, no-not that is odd that you can’t do it— I mean we are all new in this environment called university- so it’s common that we feel awkward and weird and all those things, please someone stop me from speaking-” Aeris giggles shyly and looks away.

All the boys started laughing along and a shorter guy talks “You talk just like me!” The boy laughs loudly. “I’m Kim Jongdae! It’s nice to meet you!” Aeris look at Jongdae, he had a sharped jaw and nice smile. She wondered if that jaw could actually cut things, it looked perfect. 

“God save us, having two Jongdaes is going to be pure mess!” A kitten eye sharped boy jokes happily “That’s a joke of course, we would love to have Aeris around us. My name is Zhang Yixing.” He smiled at her and turned to the eye kitten boy. “Oh I’m Kim Minseok and I agree with Yixing” he says. “You know, you guys are probably scaring Aeris away. My name is Luhan by the way is nice to meet you” Luhan changed his voice from scolding towards his friends to lovely and sweet to Aeris.

“Zhang Yixing? Luhan? Are you also Chinese?” Aeris asked them curiously.

Yixing who had the softest smile among them, chuckles and replies to her. “Yes we are! We just came from China.” He noticed how Aeris got surprised from the new information and looked at Zitao. “You didn't tell her?” he asks.

“Oh… No I haven’t yet. I mean, she didn't know you guys there was no reason” he laughs then turns to Aeris again. “We all know each other from China. It was very recently that each one of us moved to this country to study in this University” Tao explains.

“So you guys were all born in China? And you guys already knew each other for a while?” She asks.

“Me and Minseok were born here. Our parents are Korean but we moved to China when we were kids.” Jongdae explains calmly. “And ‘for a while’ would be very humble to say… Our parents know each other before we were even born. We are friends since born!” he finishes explaining.

Aeris looked at the boys with her eyes widened. Their story had surprised her in many ways, she had never had such long-lasting friends with the same age. She does have some friends that she knows since she was born since it was the daughters of her parents’ friends. But she knows it wasn't exactly the same since they were older than her; Sowon was 5 years older than her, Shawol was 4 years older and the oldest between them, Cassie that is 9 years older than Aeris. 

Despise the age difference they treats each other as a family and real sisters, always trying to give emotional support to each other during the hardest times. She wonders how it would be like if they had the same age and studied in the same classes as the boys in front of her. Their parents must be hard working to give their sons such an opportunity to study in this university. 

Soon one of the lecturers walked into the class and all the boys sat nearby Zitao and Aeris. Jongdae in front of her, followed by Kris  behind her and Yixing in front of Zitao and Minseok and Luhan behind. The first class was nothing much beside introductions about the classes and campus rules. When they are finally done with it Jongdae immediately turns himself to Aeris making a funny face about how boring the class was.

“Well at least you don’t have to move to next classes.” Aeris jokes to him patting Jongdae’s arm. “What do you mean?” Jongdae frowns confused. “I need to change classrooms after this one. I’m not sure why… It just said on the list that I should move.” Aeris explained pouting slightly.

“Maybe it is just a mistake? You should go and see what’s about” Jongdae suggests and Aeris nods. “I will! I see you later, Jongdae.” she replies

Aeris arranges all her things back into her bag and bids quick goodbyes to all her new friends and headed to the room 1458.