2016

June

The thing about being one of the few foreign students of the school is that there will be moments when you won't have someone to help you understand what's going on, or how you'll stay confused in a simple conversation because people are talking too fast for your head to translate or they'll say a word which you don't know the meaning of it and you'll feel stuck; Not a pleasant feeling, but those are still the common problems of not being fluent yet, it's what Shuhua had expected when she arrived to South Korea with her parents a few years ago. 

She knew that Yuqi wouldn't be there all the time to translate things for her, no matter how hard she tried to do just that, going all of her way to make sure Shuhua understood what was written in their textbooks or a new word she didn't know about in the few times she bothered to talk to others; Being known as the "beautiful foreign girl" in school was good when it comes to being pampered, with the boys willing to carry her stuff for her -Yuqi and Minnie always made sure to keep them away- to the girls who either thought she was cute, like a little sister, and wanted to squeeze her cheeks to the ones who thought she was really pretty and most likely had second intentions, Yuqi also made sure to keep them away, arguing Shuhua was still too young to date, Like a protective older sister who didn't trust anyone with her heart just yet. But she would lie if she said that didn't get in the way of her trying to become more social, and being able to communicate better but being her introvert and shy self, she didn't exactly stopped the duo from being her bodyguards. 

It's probably how she got closer to Minnie, She made sure nobody made Shuhua uncomfortable without protecting her too much, she wasn't a fan of shielding others from every bad thing in the world and thought sometimes getting hurt was necessary to grow thicker skin. 

Well, until that one day-

You see, when you're a foreign, people might react to your accent and trouble to pronounce some words as cute and funny, after spending so much time with the cooking club and surrounded by girls way too willing to squeeze her cheeks, she knew that most of the time the reaction she got was 'cute', 'adorable' and among some other things along those lines; God knew that the shade of red on her face wasn't from blushing, well maybe a little. 

But, just like her father had warned her back in middle school on her first day, not everyone likes foreigners, or theirs accents and even worse when you can't pronounce things right, it was easy to feel out of place around those people who had a lot of fun by pointing it out and laughing at every mistake and slip of tongue and for a while Shuhua was too shy to talk, she didn't wanted to be the of some joke because she didn't know how to say a word; It started to happen a bit more often than she was comfortable with but despite her cute face and lack of height, she was tough, or tried to be, and did her best to ignore it until she couldn't anymore. 

It was how Minnie found her, hidden under the bleachers on the football field one afternoon when everyone was away in their classes; Minnie had decided to skip class that one afternoon but was surprised that little Shushu -how she nicknamed her- was doing the same, but judging from how wet her cheeks were, it seems she wasn't avoiding class for fun; She moved under the bleachers and watched as Shuhua's face rise from her knees, as she was sitting on the ground alone; eyes meeting Minnie's.

"Shuhua, what's wrong?" It's all she could ask, sitting next to the younger, hands slowly and gently pat her her head, fingers into her long black hair as she it, trying to comfort her but Minnie doesn't believe she was good at that, She was the youngest of her family, used to being the one to be comforted and babied by her parents and her brothers; Being a unnie was new to her and for a moment she wanted to call Yuqi for help, maybe she knows how to deal with this better. 

"I want to go home" She heard Shuhua sob, arms wrapped around her knees as she sank her head even further into her own arms, Minnie shifted closer, as she tries to think of how to deal with this, her hand itches with the need to grab her phone and call Yuqi yet again, but the idea of just giving Shuhua to someone else just cause she couldn't handle a few tears didn't sit right with her. 

"Do you need me to take you home?" She then asked, her voice was lower, as gentle as she could. "My car is in the parking lot-"

Shuhua shakes her head which makes the older frown. 

"No?"

Shuhua shakes her head again. "I want to go home," She said again. "I don't wanna be in Korea anymore, I want to go back to Taiwan" She then said, in the best way she could, between sobs; The cheesy response would be to claim this was her home now but not even Minnie herself believed that. Home is where you feel happy, like you belong to it and judging by Shuhua's tears, that's not how she felt in here, at least not right now.

She missed her hometown, missed having more than two friends, being able to take the bus and travel without worrying about misreading the directions, she missed talking and being understood, not having people make fun of her accent; She missed home, her actual home; where her grandparents and aunts and uncles lived. She just wanted to go back and be left alone. 

"Slow down…" Minnie tries to remember her mother's soothing voice, the one she would use to calm her or her brothers out when they would fall off their bike and hurt their knee. "Just take deep breaths and tell me what happened?" She squeezes Shuhua's shoulder who still refused to look at her, She knew there must be a reason for this to happen a