And winged it I did.

The moment the door had given way to the gracious host of my new residence, I had already prepped one of my pre-memorized introduction – a clear one in the chamber for the socially inept like me. As soon as I had caught a peek of what seemed to be shoulder length hair with a light violet finish, I had fired my conversational piece. “Hello. It would seem that we are meeting for the first time. The name’s …”, I hastily muttered but it would seem that my loaded greeting had been shattered by the sheer view of my subordinate. Eyes as clear as the waters of Bora-Bora and a sweetly sun-kissed skin; the saying that pictures do not do justice had rung true in that case for I was captivated by this being who was supposedly one of the images in my dossiers whilst I breezed through the pages nonchalantly. “Could it be that I have missed her throughout my sleepy nights of self-studying?”, I doubted myself as the silence between the two of us grew longer by the second.

Pointing at my black luggage, she hesitantly asked, “Yakult?”. My mind was still frostbitten by her sudden emergence that I stood there for a few frames more before I had finally conjoined the two things together. I waved both my hands and unsteadily replied “N-no, no. I’m here to move in?”. In my disarray, she had thought that I was peddling those yogurt drinks that Korean aunties were so famous for shovelling down every household in the urban areas. Before I could even take back my words, I had realised how harrowing such a reply could be. A grown man insisting that he’s moving in an all-girls dorm could have resulted in my first ever arrest in the entirety of my life. I had even planned to hand her the letter of authenticity just in case the first thing to come to her mind was to call for the police. However, for some ungodly reason, the beauty that stood in front of me had an epiphany of sort for she clapped her hands together before exclaiming my new position. “Ah! Manager-ssi!”, she delightfully proclaimed before unlatching the numerous locks of the gate. I would have called her out on the convenience of it all but I did not have the luxury of rejecting the opportunity that was presented itself to me.

Fortunately, my novice-level Korean managed to catch up with her speech’s rate as she threw a flurry of words that resulted in “Please make yourself at home. I’ll go get the rest.”. I did as I was told with the removal of my shoes and the casual lugging of my bags into the corridor. The rest … that would mean that they’re probably all here. It was a Saturday after all so they either are on leave or have a freed up schedule. Curious as to what the rest of my group members look like in person, I snuck a peek from the cornered wall. To my surprise, they have gathered themselves in a line as if to greet a VIP, definitely not a person of my calibre. I had no choice but to just go around the bend and introduce myself to them no matter how embarrassing the whole scenario felt and so forth I went with bags on both hands.

“Annyeonghaseyo!”, they exclaimed in perfect unison. Like I needed nine girls to welcome me into my new lodging. I was more accustomed to the nonchalant greetings deadbeat fellow hoteliers gave each other at the end of every night shift so having my new associate welcome me like this was akin to being shell-shocked. With not much to go on, I blankly replied with a simple thank-you. This seemed to have disappointed pretty much the whole lot as they went from cheerful to sceptic at breakneck speeds. I couldn’t blame them at that point – all that pizzazz and fanfare just for an empty “thank you”; I’d be discouraged too. The one who had greeted me at the door began motioning to a door in a sea of hallways and closed doors.

“Your office will be right there.”, she said.

“Ah … gamsahabnida. It’s best if I go set up my base of operations for now”, I responded. I had definitely planned to have some sort of cohesion with them but the mere fact that that was my first day as the group manager left much work that needed to be done. Observation of subtle details was a necessary skill as a hotelier and with my utility of said trait, it was clear that I had just dropped in the approval ratings even deeper with my distancing away from them. But I needed to settle down and get used to the system first before I can go out and play with you gals, I wanted to defend myself but I ceased all forms of excuses lest I wanted to be seen as immature alongside distant and cold.

“Come on, boy. Let’s wing it. Let’s wing it”, I rooted for myself underneath my breath. Usually, I would have had a solution to keep the self-privileged guests content and unable to write negative reviews of our establishment but I’m stumped when it comes to nine disappointed ladies! Was it supposed to be my fault that they had high expectations of their new manager? Did no one tell them this gig was my literal first step into the showbiz business? Why am I such a downer to them?

Let’s just go with the flow, I thought to myself. They were all but ready to disperse the moment I stepped into the office but I decided not to let things get even more awkward after I closed the door on them so I applied some sort of temporary remedy to a problem that shouldn’t have been one in the first place. “Uhh ..”, I addressed them which appeared to work as they had stopped dead on their tracks the moment I made a squeak. “I’ll be ready in about 30 minutes. Perhaps we can do … solo interviews? To get to know each other better since … you know … we’ll be working together.”. My confidence or rather lack thereof did not do much of an impression on them as they hastily nodded their head in acknowledgement before disappearing to their individual rooms. As the last door jammed itself shut, so did mine as I retreated to the desk in front of me.

This is going to be much harder than I thought…