2014 

YOUR POV

Man 13 years goes by too fast! Early in that period of time I kept in contact with Yeollie oppa. Yes, I still call him that. I found out that he ended up becoming a trainee for SM, which was great! We both knew he couldn’t dance if his life depended on it, but I knew they found a good guy to train. I started hanging out with my cousin JinYoo, who lived in the states after moving here from Korea when we were 3. Both of us were half Filipino and half Korean, while oppa was full Korean. Yoo and I spoke English, Korean, and Tagalog. I took French in high school, but not enough to have a smooth conversation. 

Anyway, when I heard that Yeollie became the rapper for EXO, a kpop boy group, I instantly became a fan. When they debuted, I made sure to become a fan. It wasn’t that hard either because oppa's group mates were pretty handsome, hehe. 

3 months had already passed since graduating high school and now I was finding out where I was accepted for college. One was in Seoul, a performing arts one specifically. I instantly knew I had to go there. There was no question about it. 

After seeing my acceptance letter and freaking out, I found out that even better: JinYoo got in too! We knew we had to go there so we told our parents. Both were willing to move there again, seeing that we had family there and that my grandma was well off now. Yoo and I freaked out a lot after that. 

I tried to call Yeollie oppa to tell him the great news, but since he debuted it's been a little bit hard to contact him. His phone was changed so I couldn’t call him. Any contact with EXO was highly secure, so simply saying "I’m family" was not an easy ticket through. I gave up eventually, just going with the fact that I’m just going to have to surprise him when I get there. 

In less than a couple months we were flying towards South Korea. On the plane I was super excited but after that I pretty much slept the rest of the ride. Yoo and I sat together and when both of us were awake at the same time, we'd freak out that we were that much closer to our biases and now that our cousin was an idol we would meet more people. 

"Yoo, we shouldn’t get our hopes up that oppa will introduce us to many people. They are all busy, I don’t even know if we'd see Yeollie oppa that much."

 Yoo pouted. "But SeoJi!" she whined.

 "You know better than I to have such high expectations.” I gave her a look.

 "I hate when you’re right.” She muttered. A bit of silence passed then she admitted, “I do hope we can see each other."

 I sighed. "Nado.”

 "Well I didn’t see him as much as you did!" She countered.

 "I was only there 2 more years than you!" 

"Still! Oppa and I were close too!" 

"Oh ehm gee Yoo that was more than a decade ago! Let it go~" I sang the last part referencing the Disney song. 

She looked at me through squinted eyes trying not to laugh. She eventually gave in and we laughed together.

 "Ladies and gentlemen, I just wanted to inform you that we will be landing in the Seoul International Airport in 30 minutes. If you could hang on until then it would be much appreciated. Thank you again for flying with us." We heard over the speaker.

JinYoo instantly got more excited as I smiled. 

Oppa… I'm almost home.