The school is layed out in a really easy to access manner. It has three floors, each starting a new hundreds digit in room numbers- floor one went from 100 to 199. Floor two went from 200 to 299, and floor three was door numbers 300 to 399. There aren't actually that many rooms in the school- the room numbers skip by tens.

My first class is Korean. The room is number 240- I find the room easily. I stand for at least 5 minutes though, staring at the door with my hand on it. Blood is rushing through my ears and my stomach is in a tight knot.

What if it's like training? What if..

What if everyone hates me?

I swallow my spit nervously and open the door to my new classroom.

Class started at least 10 minutes ago, I realize, because the whole class is quiet when I open the door, and the teacher is at the blackboard.

All eyes are on me.

"Umm," I say, bowing my head. How was I supposed to act? Should I speak in English or Korean? "Hi," I say nervously in English. My voice cracks. "Sorry I'm late."

"You're the new girl?" The teacher asks, looking me up and down. I nod, my eyes brushing over the room. "Why don't you introduce yourself?"

"Um," I say, turning to face the class. "I'm Olyvia. I'll be your classmate from now on." I bow my head again and stare at my feet.

"Well then, Olyvia," The teacher says, pointing halfway across the room, "Go sit by Dongmin. Dongmin, raise your hand, would you?"

A boy sitting towards the back of the room with a very bored expression on his face raises his hand. I notice an earphone dangling from his right ear and disappearing into his hoodie. How could the teacher not notice?

"Thank you," I say. Then I walk to the back of the room and sit down. I take off my backback and get my notebook and pencils out. I'm about to start copying down the notes the teacher is writing on the board, when I feel eyes on me. I look over at Dongmin.

"Olyvia, huh?" He asks with a raised eyebrow. I'm not sure what to say so I nod and smile.

"Nice to meet you," I whisper, then hurriedly write down the notes on the blackboard.

 

~

 

Class ends after about an hour. Thankfully, I could keep up with most of the lesson due to my crazy drama watching and my Korean friends back home. I learned the alphabet from them, so I wasn't too far behind the other kids in my class.

As I exit the classroom, I dig out my schedule from the pocket in my skirt.

Math- Room 310, It reads. I find a staircase and head up to my next class.

Math is over quickly. Because I actually took advanced math classes back in America, I was even or at a higher level than the math they were teaching here. I didn't need to pay much attention because I knew the material.

After math is lunch. I head quickly down to the ground floor where the cafeteria is, and jump in line. I've been famished all morning due to my high activity level and low calorie intake. Luckily, SM can't monitor everything I eat, especially at school.

I grab a tray and point out everything I want to the lady behind the food. She plops generous amounts onto my tray, and I grab a water bottle on the way to my seat.

Then I cram everything possible into my mouth. The rice and kimchi and noodles and frozen persimmon. Even though I don't really like persimmons. But I figure I should try to eat everything possible to keep my strength up.

I cram another bit of rice and kimchi into my mouth then look up as I see a group of girls crowding around me.

"You're Olyvia, right?" One of them asks. I look at her with sceptical eyes.

"Um, yeah," I say through my mouthful of rice. I chew it quickly and swallow. "Do you need something?"

"We just wanted to talk to you," Another girl says. "About coming to this school." I nod slowly, not completely comprehending what she says.

"Okay...?" I wait for them to continue.

"Just because you're actually American doesn't mean anything," The first girl says. I process this, and I realize she's talking about me not being of Asian descent. Although this IS an international school, I don't recall seeing any non asian people here. Mostly Asian Americans that lived in America go to school here.

"And don't you dare get too close to Dongmin," Another girl throws in. Murmurs of agreement sound from the crowd around me. 

I raise an eyebrow. So that's what's going on with them? They're mad at me because I get to sit next to Dongmin in first period? I resist a smile. and just nod to them.

They leave and I fork the rest of my food into my mouth and chew it carefully. Then I put my tray on the pile of other trays, grab another bottle of water and head to my next class.

~
 

After school I don't wait for Haerin or Hana or Jiyun. I know I have a few hours till I need to be at the SM buliding and that's all I care about.

So I walk as fast as I can over to our dorm- a 15 minute walk at least. As soon as I get to the door, I bend over to the lock and finger my neck for my key- I put it on the metal chain I always wear around my neck so I wouldn't lose it- then unlock the door.

I hurry inside and change into comfortable running clothes, grabbing my dancing shoes and an extra t-shirt for what ever training we may do tonight. I stuff these inside a small Nike string bag and hurry out the door, locking it on my way out.

I run for 15 minutes in loops from our dorm area, over to the school, then around to the SM building. I want to run longer but I'm too tired and although I'm not hungry, I feel hollow and weak. So I stop running right in front of the SM building and head inside. I look around the lobby area for water, and as soon as I find a water bottles I gulp it down greedily. Then I look at my watch. 3:45. I still have at least an hour before I have to do anything important.

Sighing, I unscrew the cap of my waterbottle and then seeing as there's no water left inside, I screw the cap back on.

Then I unscrew it.

Then I screw it back on.

I repeat this for about five mintes and realize that I'm getting weird looks from the receptionist in the lobby, so I head up to our training room and practice our dance. I practice it slow about five times through, then fast. Then slow, then fast, all the while watching myself in the mirror at the front of the studio. I was definitely improving on this dance at a quick rate- I didn't look awkward anymore and my movements were a lot smoother.

Sighing, at the end of the 5th time running it through slowly, I wipe my sweat beaded forhead on my tshirt and slump down in the middle of the room. My breathing slows after a few minutes and I figure I should run the dance a few more times. I had at least half an hour still, why not make it useful?

I stand up and immediately feel off balance. The whole room spins a few times around before I catch myself against a nearby wall. My head feels heavy.

What was that? I shake my head free of the heavy feeling and decide I'm probably dehydrated.

I grab another waterbottle from outside the room and down it quickly. Then I run the dance again. And again.

I stop when other trainees start coming into the room. I bow respectfully as they do and ignore the strange looks I get, then stand against the back wall to try and deflect any attention.

The choreographers come in after a few minutes of waiting and we run the dance just like I had been doing. Five times slow, once fast, repeat.

It can't have been more than an hour when the choreographers tell us it's time to stop and go to our vocal lessons.

"Good work, everyone," I hear the choreographers saying. All the trainees migrate into their small circles again and I can recall doing that back home in America with my friends.

Friends. I miss my friends. If they really ever were friends. They haven't contacted me once since I left America.

Sighing, I bend down to grab my bag from the back of the training room.

Friends. Who needs friends?, I think angrily, still standing at the back of the room. Friends won't matter as soon as I debut. None of these trainees here will matter when I debut. It'll be me and my music, and nothing else will interfere.

With this thought in mind, I walk briskly out of the dance studio and down the flights of stairs to the vocal training room that I was in yesterday.

~

My stomach growls loudly in the middle of the scales we're singing. Everyone in my group stares at me but keeps singing. I keep singing too, but I bow my head in apology.

We finish our scales and my vocal teacher, Mrs. Jung, glares at me.

"What's wrong with you?" She asks angrily in her heavily accented English. "How could you interrupt a lesson like that? Do you know how many other people would die to take your place?"

"I'm so sorry," I say, bowing my head sincerely, even though I don't understand what I did wrong. How could I controll what my stomach did?

"Go stand in the hallway until I call you back in," Mrs. Jung points a knobby finger at the door to the room. I bow as I exit and close the door softly behind me.

The hallway is eerily quiet. I look around and see a set of stairs a few dozen feet away from where I stand. I feel my lips curl into a small smile as I recall jumping off of them and almost crashing into Kyuhyun.

The smile disappears as my stomach growls again.

I slump down against the wall opposite the door to Mrs. Jung's room and put my head on my knees, closing my eyes. Although there hasn't been so many evil stares directed at me from other trainees lately, I still feel hated.

Every other trainee has a circle of friends they belong to. I don't. They have someone in the same country as them they can rely on. I don't.

That's when it truly hits me.

I am one hundred percent alone. You do not love anyone in this country, and nobody in this country loves you.

You are alone.

"Excuse me, are you okay?"

You are alone.

"Excuse me, Ms, are you okay?"

I look up, startled, in the direction the voice came from. Especially since the voice is speaking Englsih. "So-sorry," I choke out, my vision so blurry I can't even make out distinct features. Blurry vision?

I rub my eyes and find they're wet.

"S-sorry," I mutter again, wiping the tears from my eyes and looking up again when I'm sure they're all gone. The person standing above me bends down so they're at eye level with me.

"I didn't ask if you're sorry. I asked if you're okay," The person says. I look at them directly and it takes a few seconds to register in my brain who they are.

"Ch-Cho Kyuhyun?" I stammer out, my eyes growing wide and my face growing hot.  I stand up quickly and bow my head, but the dizzy feeling from early today comes back. Steadying myself on the wall behind me, I bow from the waist. "I'm so sorry to trouble you," I say nervously, hoping he wouldn't bring up why I was crying. That was a show of weakness.

I should know by now there is no allowance for weakness in this industry.

Kyuhyun looks at me seriously, then breaks into a grin. "You're that girl that did the flip, right?" I nod, slightly stunned but also glad he didn't ask me if I'm okay again.

"You should teach me how to do that sometime."

I nod again.

There's an awkward silence and I try to think of something to say, but my mind's so muddled it feels impossible. "Um," I say nervously, trying not to look at Kyuhyun's face. It's so perfect. "I'm not usually such a downer. I think it's just because I'm new here."

"Don't worry about it too much. You'll get used to it after a few days," Kyuhyun says with a grin, obviously knowing what I'm talking about. "Anyways," He continues. "I have to go. Cheer up!"

Before I can say anything else, he's gone.

~

That night, I can't fall asleep.

My thoughts are too muddled up and my body aches too much and I'm too hungry to do much but lay in my bed and mull over everything that happened today- or the one big thing that happened to me today.

Cho Kyuhyun.

The first thing that pops into my head is that he could speak English so well, although I should've guessed he'd be at least proficient in the language. He was a genius in highschool and is going to a top University. He must be at least conversational.

That leads me to another thing.

Why was he so nice to me? Just the thought of his smile sends a chill down my spine. How long had it been since someone's smiled at me last?

A day or two, actually, Olyvia, I remind myself. Even though I've only been training for a few days, it feels as though I've been here in Korea for at least a month. 

It's because you don't have anyone with you, I think. It would be more bearable if you had someone to confide in.

Kyuhyun's smirking face pops into mind and I feel a small smile spread on my face.

That's right, Olyvia. This isn't that bad. The fact that you don't have anyone paying too much attention to you is a good thing. It means you're not getting bullied.

Be glad you're living your dream.

 

 

Ohhhh!! I finished another chapter~

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