"I told you! You should have left way earlier! It's the weekend, everything's blocked but it's Saturday evening, people still want to go out!"

A bus had arrived, and she looked at the people pushing and squeezing themselves in, not caring about the others around them. Siyeon ruffled her hair in frustration.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry! I thought I'd take the bus but I completely forgot about traffic jam."

She scanned the road. Given the long line of cars that probably went on for kilometers, even squeezing herself in the bus now probably wouldn't be the smartest idea as it’d be as fast as a sloth.

“Anticipation, Siyeon. Anticipation.”

She chose to ignore Yoohyeon’s lecture.

"When does it start?"

"7pm."

"7pm? Can we enter after?"

"I guess, yeah."

"Listen Yoohyeon.” Someone pushed her aside to reach the bus. Didn’t even say sorry, of course. “I don't think I can make it on time, but I'll arrive sooner or later. I'll find a way. Franklin Roosevelt station, right?"

"Yeah. It's two minutes away on foot. You probably won't be the only one late. Just follow the Korean people you see when you reach there."

That was probably the vaguest explanation ever, but it made sense.

"Franklin Roosevelt, follow the Koreans. 'Kay, see you."

She hung up and quickly opened her GPS app to look for other directions, typing in the address. She’d gladly pace around to calm herself, but there were too many people to even budge from her spot.

"Please tell me there's another way to get there…"

Siyeon felt her soul leave her body when she only combinations of buses and walking as itineraries, all of them taking more around an hour to reach her destination, when it should have taken less than half an hour, and without physical exertion. Did she really have to go ? It’s not like Yoohyeon would be by herself, Yubin was there too.

"That strike , right?" She heard someone close by say in Korean. A feminine, yet slightly deep voice. She didn't know if it was meant for her, but instinctively she raised her head from her phone. She found a pair of expectant eyes looking at her, belonging to a very Korean-looking girl. She was wearing a long coat and a scarf to protect herself from the cold, while remaining elegant.

"Sorry?"

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation.” She explained calmly. “By any chance, are you going to the Korean Cultural Center too?"

"You're also going to the event?" She said, surprised.

"Yeah, but I had other businesses to take care of before that and could only leave now." They heard shouts for the driver to let a mother with a baby stroller out and they both turned their head towards the bus to look at the scene. "This is a mess, not that I really expected otherwise," the other girl lamented, as if she'd seen this way too often.

She looked at the phone she was holding in her hand, screen lit up with a different  transportation app opened. She showed it briefly to Siyeon, energetically shoving the screen in her face, before continuing. Siyeon had to take a step back from fear of collision.

"It says it's shorter to walk. Hopefully we'd be able to catch a bus once we leave this area. We only have to reach line 1 anyway, it's working properly." Siyeon spaced out for a while trying to comprehend what that implied. "If you don't mind walking, that is," she added to clarify, seeing that Siyeon wasn't responding.

"I guess there's no other choice. The bus is out of the question." In any other situation, Siyeon would have gone straight back home, buried herself in layers of blankets and netflixed the night away. No pain, no gain, they said. Well, Siyeon was on the no pain - at all - team. Making efforts for unequivalent results was the bane of her existence and that included walking as a means of transportation. Highly inefficient. If taxis weren't so expensive here, she'd probably use them way more, not that it would be relevant in her current predicament.

"Pretty much, yeah."

However, Yoohyeon had been bugging her to no end for days about this event at the new Korean Culture Center, and since they were leaving soon, she became scaringly persuasive. Weighing her options, the thought of her friend looking like a kicked puppy and constantly reminding her it was only because she didn't show up was unpleasant compared to suffering one evening. Her heart was sincerely torn.

"So, uhm… shall we go together?" The other girl offered, tentatively.

Also, the prospect of being in good company - because let's be honest, Siyeon wasn't blind and that was probably the reason she kept spacing out, was apparently enough to make her forget the fact they're about to walk for an hour.

"Sure, the more the merrier." She replied, still too slowly for a normal conversation.

She was a really good friend to Yoohyeon.

Well, had that girl not been on the balance of her decisions as well, maybe she would have been a bad friend and ditched the event. Who knows? Possibilities. For now, that girl seemed to have enough energy for them both.

"Great!" The girl grabbed Siyeon's arm then started to drag her out of the chaos of the bus stop and through the mass of people. See? Overflowing. "I'm Kim Bora, by the way."

"Lee Siyeon, nice to meet you."

"Oh and, you should change your navigation app."

"Why's that?"

"Google's fine for the subway but not that reliable for bus routes. Especially during strikes." Once they got to a relatively calmer place, Bora let go of her arm before unlocking her phone again. Silently, she pointed towards the direction they had to go in, then guided them through the streets of Paris.

"Why am I only learning about that now?" Siyeon groaned. She remembered the few times she got lost following the app's instructions. She had to transfer lines, but the platform for the other line was closed for construction work. She had stood in front of the subway map like an idiot trying to figure out another way, because of course the app still didn’t consider the issue.

"How long have you been here? Since you're going to the Cultural Center, I imagine you're not just on holidays."

Siyeon nodded.

"Three months, I'm here on exchange."

“One semester?”

“Yup.”

"Cool. Where do you study?"

"Diderot? Do you know it?" Bora nodded and hummed in approval. "How about you? You sound like you know the city's in and out." Most probably because of her behavior, her whole being screamed confidence.

"Maybe not to that extent, but soon it'll be a year, so yeah, you could say I know my way around. I’m on exchange as well. "

"Wow, respectable. I'm counting on you then."

"The subway is so overrated, don't you think?"

Siyeon huffed. They had been walking for a solid thirty minutes now, but the lines of car didn't reduce. On the contrary, it seemed even busier and any hope of catching a bus had been crushed to pieces.

"Totally. I mean, who actually wants to pass by the sweet smell of urin