First day of school.

Felix's stomach curled up into a little ball and hid away like a scared porcupine, poking any butterflies that dared fly near it. He took a deep breath. It smelled different. Foreign. It wasn't a bad smell, he just wasn't used to the air smelling of anything. Okay, sure, he had smelled his fair share of roo poo, but only at the sanctuary, it wasn't a smell that lingered in the air everywhere you went. He wondered if the air back home actually did smell, but he was simply so used to it that he didn't notice it.

Gathering all his courage, which wasn't all that great, he left the safety of the front door and stepped into the sidewalk. A small step if you measured it in inches, but a huge step for him. He had been feeling under the weather since he arrived in Seoul some 28 hours ago. Having a hard time sleeping and a hard time staying awake, he was doubting his decision to come here. He wanted nothing more than to take the first flight back home, but he wouldn't be able to face his family after spending a year convincing them that he could do this.

Now he just needed to convince himself that he could do this.

It was easier said than done. The overwhelming wall of buildings around him seemed to be growing. Even though you could barely see them for all the neon signs. They were everywhere, thousands, millions of them. Back home there were more kangaroos than neon signs. The supermarket was the only shop that had one.

The sidewalk was crowded with people and every single person was in a hurry, bumping into him left, right and center. To get to the campus, he only needed to cross one street but it seemed like an impossible task. The moment the light turned green, a sea of people flooded the zebra crossing. He was forward, becoming the apex of a human wave, first to greet the angry stampede coming from the other side.

Collision was inevitable.

Panicking, he tried to abort the mission, but he was trapped. In an attempt to avoid being trampled under, he fled to the side and took a step back, and then two. But the mob of people kept advancing. Oh no! In an instant, the crowd had swallowed him whole. His feet barely touching the ground, they whisked him away in the wrong direction. He couldn't see anything but arms and legs, moving him further from his destination.

After what felt like an eternity, the pedestrian army dissipated and he found himself standing on the very same spot as before. Back to square one. Dazed, he stared at the red light. How was he ever going to cross this hurdle from hell? The campus was only a five-minute walk from the dorm, but it might as well be on the North Pole.

22

21

The traffic light counted down the seconds to the next battle.

15

14

The people started herding together on each side. The lump in Felix's throat got bigger with every new person. He didn't want to do this again. He wanted to run away.

4

3

He wanted to go home. If he hadn't left, he would be feeding Lottie her bottle right now. Technically, he would be feeding her some poor joey's bottle after she robbed him of it, for she was supposed to eat grown-up food. Felix chuckled. She was such a rebel, refusing to grow up. He understood her feelings, growing up was scary and not all that it was cracked up to be.

2

1

CHAAARGE!

Awestruck, Felix came to a halt at the main entrance of the campus. The towering university buildings automatically made him feel smart. He had only needed four tries to cross the street, fewer than expected, so his self-confidence was at an all-time high. He was invincible!

The campus was like something out of a fairytale. He was facing a near full-size copy of the White House, complete with a huge water fountain in front of it. To his right was what could only be described as a wing of the Hogwarts castle. And on the hill above, sat the Notre Dame itself, towering over the campus. Felix got the feeling this semester was going to change his life forever.

As amazing as his surroundings were, they looked nothing like the map he had received from the university. He spun in circles, trying to find the music department.

“E...excuse me,” he said in English, but the students looked at him in horror and fled as fast they could.

Felix took a whiff of his shirt to see if he smelled. He could only smell detergent.

“Excuse me,” he tried again but got the same reaction.

He was on the brink of despair when a bright, sweet-looking guy came up to him and smiled kindly.

“Can I help you?”

The guy had a thick American accent, wrapped in a gentler Korean accent. It sounded so cute, Felix couldn't help but smile back.

Remembering the promise he made himself, vowing to dare to use the language he had worked so hard to learn for the past year, Felix decided to answer in Korean. The moment the thought crossed his mind, his throat began to close. With the internet as his study buddy, he wasn't all that slick when it came to speaking. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead before awkwardly bowing his head and saying hello.

It was the first time he had ever bowed to anyone in his almost twenty years of life, but he was determined to apply the Korean etiquette he had picked up whilst watching K-drama. He only hoped art did a good job imitating life.

“Wow! You have a really deep voice!” he exclaimed with his mouth hanging open.

Felix got that reaction a lot. His effeminate appearance didn't exactly match his voice.

“And you're really good at Korean,” he added.

He had immediately picked up on Felix's cue and had switched to Korean, his bright eyes showering Felix with praise. What an extravagant compliment for simply saying hello. But it still felt good, Felix's chest inflating to double its size.

“Can you please help me? I'm running late to class and I'm completely lost.”

Felix handed him his schedule.

Out of the blue, the guy burst into laughter.

“You're at the wrong school,” he said and paused to let the chuckles out. “It's the next campus over. The funny thing is, I'm actually heading there right now.”

He nodded his head to indicate that they should go together.

Felix could feel his cheeks heat up with embarrassment. The wrong campus. He was the idiot foreigner alright.

“I'm Jisung, by the way, Han Jisung. It's nice to meet you.”

“I'm Felix, Lee Felix,” he said in reply, bowing his head. It was the first time he had ever said his name backward. It had a funky ring to it. He kind of felt like James Bond's lesser-known younger brother from another mother.

The bow caused another bout of laughter.

“It's almost like you're a native Korean, bowing and everything,” Jisung said, still laughing. “Where are you from?”

“Australia.”

“Omo! I've always wanted to go there... except for the humongous killer spiders...”

He made a face of utter terror, making Felix snort out loud.

“Hey, how did you know I was a foreigner?”

Felix was Korean by descent so he should be able to pass as one.

Jisung sized him up with his eyes and smirked, “Lucky guess...?”

Felix looked down at himself and then at the people around him. Everyone was dressed like they were on their way to a wedding. A fancy wedding. And he looked like a crumpled tissue that had been in the rubbish bin for days.

Oh.

They passed through a gate and suddenly their surroundings changed drastically. There was no more Hogwarts, only uninviting concrete boxes scattered around a small mountain. Small, but steep. Felix was already breaking a sweat, hiking up the 90-degree slope.

“Hang on, let me check your schedule again to see what classroom you're in,” Jisung said as they reached the ugliest building of all.

“No way! We're taking the same class! This has to be fate. We should be friends!”

Jisung beamed at him and pulled him up three flights of stairs.

The knot in Felix's stomach melted away and for the first time since he arrived in Korea, he started to believe he might actually be able to do this.

'My first Korean friend,' Felix thought proudly.

Two minutes late, they rushed into the classroom. Felix was hit by instant disappointment. It was just an ordinary classroom. There was nothing special about it. It was more or less identical to the ones they had back home. Apparently, he had been expecting it to be completely different, something he had never seen before. What an idiot. He hadn't arrived on another planet, he was just in another country.

The room was packed to the brim with students. Felix wanted to sit next to Jisung to solidify their new friendship. His mission was to make Jisung his new bestie, no matter what the cost. He needed an ally in this scary, foreign school. But there were barely any seats left.

Jisung sent him an apologetic look as he took the last free seat in the first row. Felix continued on, slowly making his way to the back of the classroom, desperately scanning for a free spot. The knot in his gut made a comeback as he worried he would be the only one left standing.

Everyone was secretly staring at him. He had never felt as underdressed, wearing old jeans and a wrinkled shirt straight from the suitcase. He wondered if it was a tradition in Korea to dress up for the first class of the semester, but everyone out on the street had also been all stylish and fancy-looking. He felt so awkward and out of place, he was just a clueless country boy.

Thankfully, he found a seat in the back row and shyly sank into it, wishing he could turn invisible.

Felix's hands were clammy. His first class in Korea and it was conducted fully in Korean. Somehow he had managed to pass the minimum score on the Korean fluency test to be accepted into the school, but in reality, it was all still gibberish to him. How was he going to simultaneously listen to the teacher and take notes? Oh no, what if the teacher asked him something and he had to answer... in Korean!

He chewed on his lip as he tried to pay attention.

“Hey...” the guy next to him whispered.

Struggling to follow what the professor was saying, Felix had no choice but to ignore his classmate. Only, thinking about how sorry he felt giving a potential new friend the cold shoulder, he completely lost track of the lecture. Ah. He was in big trouble. The more he missed, the harder it was going to be to pick up the thread. He desperately needed to focus.

The guy poked his arm. Not once, not twice, but relentlessly until he whispered back, “What?”.

“Can you lend me a pen?” the guy mumbled.

Felix snorted, loud enough that he got a curious look from a few of the other students. He couldn't help it. At least he wasn't the only ignoramus in the class. Why wouldn't you bring a pen to the first class of the semester?! Why even show up at all?

'Us knuckleheads have to stick together', he thought, feeling sorry for the poor chap. At least Felix had the excuse of being a foreigner. Not that he would fair any better in his own country, but nobody had to know that. It was a secret he would be taking to his grave.

And so he handed him a pen. As he stuck his hand out, his eyes followed the movement of his hand, catching a glimpse of this drongo beside him.

He froze.

He was staring at a tiny dork with a cheeky smile. For some unknown reason, his heart did a doubletake. There was something about that guy. Something he couldn't put his finger on. He was far from being the handsome prince type, but he radiated a strange, innate charm. It got under Felix's skin, making him extremely uncomfortable. All he wanted to do was escape far, far away.

An embarrassingly long while later, Felix realized he hadn't let go of the pen. The guy pulled and pulled, but Felix was holding on to it as if his life depended on it.

“Heh...”

Felix sent him an awkward smile but didn't let go. His brain had lost its connection to his hand, unable to relay the message to his fingers to release the pen.

The guy narrowed his beautiful, fierce eyes and looked straight at him, surprised and confused.

When Felix didn't react, he coughed with intent.

“Oh...”

Felix finally came to his senses and let go of the pen, turning into a ripe tomato.

The rest of the class was a blur. Felix kept glancing at him without meaning to, not hearing a word of what the professor was saying. His insides all in a twist, he decided to show up early next time to make sure he got a seat as far away from this guy as possible.