“You take care okay? Make sure to call us or at least message us when you can. I love you.” Xuan Yi’s mom says as she entraps Xuan Yi in a bear hug.

“That’s enough dear, she needs to breathe in order to get to Korea.” Xuan Yi’s dad separates the two and gives Xuan Yi a hug himself.

He then whispers to Xuan Yi.

“We actually packed something in your luggage, a little surprise for you. Take care honey, I love you.”

“I love you too, dad. I’ll message you when we get there!” 

Xuan Yi boards the plane with Cheng Xiao and Mei Qi. Their applications were approved for a full semester at Starship University, a renowned pre-med institute. The excitement was an understatement, and little did the girls know that their life had already changed the second they got on that plane.

“Finally! We made it after hours of traveling. My feet hurt like hell.” Cheng Xiao says as she slumps on a chair.

“I can’t believe we got lost on the way here if it weren’t for SOMEONE who gave the wrong address to the cab driver.” Mei Qi playfully shoves Xuan Yi as she says this, earning a pout from Xuan Yi.

“My hangul needs some work it seems…”

The girls had just arrived in Korea a little after dinner. After getting a bit lost, they finally got to the student dormitories of Starship. They were welcomed by their assigned dormitory head Gwan Minji and were introduced to the dorm that they were going to be in.

This specific dorm belonged to the pre-med majors, and all the occupants were girls. The boys were right across, and the buildings looked the same. Outside it had an unusual Mediterranean design. Inside it had two floors, a living room, a big study room full of books, a fully equipped kitchen, a dining room with a really long table, and a beautiful garden filled with roses and orchids at the backyard. Now they were just waiting for her to give them their room assignments.

Minji comes back to the room with 3 sets of keys.

“Okay girls, thanks for waiting. Just to make your transition to the dorm life easier, we decided to separate yo-“

Xuan Yi spaces out when she hears they will be separated. She wanted to dorm out with the two. Most likely they’ll be roomed up with a Korean student, and she’s afraid her Korean will sound funny. Or she won’t be able to talk at all due to her shyness. She’s gotten over her social ineptitude (well some of it) but her goofiness decided to just stay. Korean culture could be different so she didn’t want to make a bad impression.

“But don’t worry, you’re all still in the same block. Your roommates may or may not be also in the same block. You’ll get to meet everyone tomorrow in the dorm meeting. Anyways, let get to your rooms. And try to be quiet, some of them are trying to study. ”

“Minji seems pretty scary.” Mei Qi whispers in Chinese.

“She seems nice though. In a scary Aunt kind of vibe.” Xuan Yi replies.

Cheng Xiao slaps both of their arms.

“Your whispers are not whispers, even in Chinese that's a bit rude…”

“Well, this place only gets noisy when it’s dinner time or breakfast. Or any other holidays. So yes, whispers can be heard here very well for now. Oh, and here’s your room Cheng Xiao.” Minji turns to give Cheng Xiao her keys. She made sure to smirk to Xuan Yi to Mei Qi, making the two girls blush. Minji-nim apparently can understand Chinese too.

“I’ll see you tomorrow girls! Wish me luck that I get a good roommate” Cheng Xiao hugs the two, knocks on the door and then opens it.

As she opens the door, they are greeted loudly by the occupant with poppers and what seems to be a very well Chinese decorated room.

“NI HAO WELCOME TO KOREA! MY NAME IS EUN-”

Before Cheng Xiao’s new roommate was able to finish her introduction to the rest of the group Minji nudges Cheng Xiao in and shuts the door, leaving Cheng Xiao to fend off her new energetic roommate.

Minji couldn’t help but laugh at what happened.

“I forgot the students here are… well, they’re a bit different from the rest. But very talented nonetheless. And this is your room Mei Qi.”

“Hey, don’t worry about being talkative okay? Just let it happen. Like how you met us.” Mei Qi brings Xuan Yi into a hug.

“How’d you know I was nervous?” a shocked Xuan Yi replies. 

“The control of your face muscles needs work. They’re good at making memes but not good in hiding your feelings. You'll be fine, you're way sociable now. Anyways, here I go!”

Mei Qi knocks on the door and she hears the affirmation to open it. As she opens it, you could see the huge pile of food on one of the desks. The next thing she sees is a girl eating a big bowl of instant ramen, who instantly stands up and smiles.

“Hello! I’m Yeo-”

Minji closes the door before Xuan Yi could hear her name. Guess the name-learning will be for tomorrow then.

“She never stops eating but never seems to gain weight…” Minji mumbles.

“What was that Minji-nim?”

“OH, nothing. Nothing Xuan Yi.”

They go to the end of the hallway and Minji hands Xuan Yi her keys.

“Here’s your room. Remember I’ll be downstairs till midnight if you need anything. See you!”

And with that Xuan Yi is alone, right in front of her new roommate’s door. Will she be tall? Or short? Or as noisy as Cheng Xiao's roommate? Maybe she didn’t get a roommate. She curses her social ineptitude at this point. 

Remembering Mei Qi's words, she inhales deeply to calm herself down.

“Okay, enough overthinking. Let’s just get this on.”

Xuan Yi knocks on the door to her room, but no one replies. So she speaks up.

“Excuse me, um I- I’m your new roommate”

“Come in!” Her roommate must have been busy. And with all the confidence she had left Xuan Yi entered the room. And she’s actually quite surprised. In a very good way.

The room is very neat and orderly, and it was quite spacious to be in. This floor was carpeted in blue with some intricate designs. The room had two big windows so she could see right outside the front. To her right were the beds. One of the beds had a big BoA poster on top of the headrest, and a guitar right next to the bed. To her left was an empty desk with an envelope on it, could be her desk.

And right in front of her was another desk, with her new roommate. She’s in an oversized hoodie, with her headphones on her neck. She had short auburn hair, and to Xuan Yi, she had these fierce yet sad eyes. 

“Hey new roomie, I’m Sojung! But you can call me Exy. You must be one of the Chinese transferees.” She stands up and she helps Xuan Yi with her luggage. Xuan Yi is quite happy, Exy seems to be friendly enough. Xuan Yi hopes Exy doesn’t mind a talkative person.

“Hello, I’m Xuan Yi. It’s nice to meet you. Was I disturbing you?”

“Nah, I was just recording some parts of my mixtape. Hey, you have really good Korean!” This made Xuan Yi even happier, especially after her hangul mix-up with the driver.

“Thank you, my friends and I wanted to prepare for the trip. So, do I address you as unnie?”

“Depends, I was born in November 1995. You?” Exy says as she hands a chair for Xuan Yi to sit down.

Xuan Yi squeals a bit.

“I actually just turned 20 a few weeks ago. So, I guess I’m the unnie!”

This earns a pout from Exy.

“Hey, I know this place a lot more! Technically I’m unnie! But since you're new here, I’ll call you unnie when we are by ourselves.”

Exy has a cute pout, she puts her hand on her chin to emphasize it even more.

Xuan Yi can't believe this girl is already so friendly with her.

“Hey, it’s my first night here and you’re already working on your aegyo! Calm your horses. Anyways, what mixtape you were talking about?”

Exy and Xuan Yi talk into the night about Exy’s side music career, how she got the name “Exy”, her love of BoA, Xuan Yi’s life in Hainan, and a lot of Korean culture Xuan Yi didn’t know while searching the web. They did all this as they unpacked Xuan Yi's luggage and little did they know it was already 1 am, and they had classes around 9 am.

“Well, we better go to sleep. I’ll wake you up around 7:30 if that’s okay with you. You’ll meet some of the girls for breakfast also. I’ll let you unpack the rest of the bags for now. Good night Xuan Yi.”

“Good night Exy.”

As Exy sleeps, Xuan Yi opens the last luggage of her luggage and she sees the surprise her parents left her. It was a big pack of seaweed, and right under it was a framed picture of their Christmas trip to Beijing. She opens the back of the frame and a message is written in her father's handwriting :

Always remember why you chose this. We chose what makes us struggle, to make us better 

It makes Xuan Yi tear a little, she’s gonna have to text them before she sleeps.

So far, it’s only been a few hours and it’s been really fun for Xuan Yi. She has a really cool roommate in Sojung, she’s in Korea chasing her dream, anything could happen at this point. Xuan Yi goes to bed with a happy and excited heart as she’s about to embark on this flowery road.

Exy wakes Xuan Yi up around 7:30 just as promised. Xuan Yi freshens up, gets in her clothes, and heads downstairs. She could already hear the noise of some of the girls from upstairs, and she could somehow hear Mei Qi’s and Cheng Xiao’s laughter mixed in there.

As soon as she approaches the dining room, she could already smell kimchi and what possibly could be really good instant ramen. She could also hear Exy trying to quiet down the girls.

“Don’t be too noisy guys, the others are still sleeping. Oh, and here’s my roommate!” Exy is with Cheng Xiao, Mei Qi, and 2 other girls. They are all having breakfast.

“Hello everyone, I’m Xuan Yi!” Xuan Yi grabs a plate and sits closest to her fellow Chinese.

“Hello, I’m Yeoreum! I’m in 2^nd year. I’m roommates with Mei Qi, and I promise to take good care of her! She had some of my ramen packs since last night, we had a tasting.” Yeoreum has silver hair with some purple highlights, and she looks pretty fit for someone who apparently eats a lot. In fact, her plate is still full of food. She’s like a cute child when she smiles.

“Let’s not ever eat the Samyang please. Unless we have exams.” Mei Qi face has a look of disgust after reminding herself what happened last night.

“AND HELLO NI HAO, I’M JUYEON. YOU CAN CALL ME EUNSEO.”

Exy slaps Eunseo at the back of her head. “Eunseo for the love of god you don’t have to shout”

Eunseo rubs the spot Exy hits her

“Ow… Anyways I’m also in 3^rd year with you guys. I’m Cheng Xiao’s roommate. I find it so cool you are all friends since grade school, what a solid friendship!” Eunseo puts up a genuine smile. She has a very prominent nose and long jet-black hair. She looked pretty tall, and with that hyperactive personality Xuan Yi might get along with her.

“We loved that cute introduction you did last by the way, despite it being a bit too noisy.” Cheng Xiao says to Eunseo. Eunseo slightly blushes to that statement, something that only Xuan Yi notices immediately. 

Exy passes some of the food to Xuan Yi.

"You’ll meet the others later during the dormitory meeting. For now, eat up! We got classes in a while.”

“Oh, I hope you like the food by the way! I made it. Usually, another girl named Dayoung makes breakfast, but she's still asleep. I think she'll be cooking tomorrow” Eunseo says, beaming with pride.

If every day was going to be like this for 5 months, Xuan Yi could get used to this life.