“I hate shopping,” I pouted. I was lying, of course, being a typical teenage girl. Especially with Yoomi shopping with me, finding clothes for the both of us. Seohee was here, too, but I wasn’t sure if that was a plus or minus considering her naturally slim frame. Though, because of that, I wasn’t the only one unable to find clothes fitting perfectly like Yoomi could, effortlessly. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not overweight and I’m not complaining (partially because I know I could go for a run every now and then), but every girl gets that little pang of jealousy that their mother couldn’t have passed down some skinny genes (pun not intended, but appreciated).

            “We only got here an hour ago,” Yoomi tried to reason, nicely, “I mean, we can go try on shoes so we can sit or something..”

            “No, I’m just being a bum. You’re being too nice,” I smiled, motioning to the clothes she had just picked out for all of us.

            “Well, we’re only here for the summer and there are school group days like that walking tour of Seoul, so we need to take advantage of the free time we have, you know? Especially before the school group leaves us foreign exchangers for the states,” She perked up again, counting the clothes in her arm. “I’ll be in the changing rooms”

            Suddenly, I felt an awkward quiet. Seohee and I weren’t that close and Yoomi was really the one that kept us together as a group. She never tried to really talk to be, and when I tried talking to her, it was very tense, so I let it go, thinking that maybe time would bring us closer. We got a little more comfortable, but obviously not as close as Yoomi was to either of us. Perhaps, I thought as I had many times before, she just didn’t like me but still tolerated me. Or maybe I was just over thinking. I always had a tendency to do that.

            “Hey, Ann?” I called hesitantly, addressing her fully in English.

            “Yeah?” she sounded a little taken aback by the sound of her English name.

            “Are you still up for that audition?,”

            “I mean, we’re not likely to make it, but I guess it’d be fun to do…If everyone goes, I mean”

            “Yeah, of course”

            “Maybe we should do it separately”. Bang. Did she not think we—or I—were talented? “For a better shot that at least one of us making it”

            “Oh, well, yeah. That sounds…logical. Are you thinking of modeling?,” I smiled a little. Yoomi and I always mentioned her ability to model when the topic of auditioning arose. We told her it was because of her confidence in her looks.

            “Hm, possibly. Like, dancing might give me an edge since so many people can’t”

            “Oh, that’s actually pretty smart” 

            “Are you singing?” She continued to flip through clothes on a rack in front of me, looking up at me to be sure I had heard.

            “Probably, since I’m not any good at freestyle, but so many people sing that I’m really only doing this for the experience”

            “Probably”

            “Yeah..uh, well, let’s go try these on and then look at some shoes before we eat”

            In the fitting room, I pulled off my shirt and frowned, thinking that Seohee was at least a size or two smaller, but I brushed that thought away as I slipped on a gorgeous tie-dyed blue maxi-dress.

            Ann and I finished first, and Yoomi shortly after. We paid separately and left, chatting about the super-low prices compared to the ones back home in America.

            “Oh, Yoomi,” Seohee shook her head in a quick memory of a past conversation, “should we start working on audition material? Haneul was asking”

            “Seohee, say Jae-min, not Haneul, please,” I wrinkled my nose at the name my dad gave me. I knew he gave it to me in love, but he just didn’t know that it was an uncommonly odd name. Luckily, my Korean name was saved by my mother who gave me the middle name I chose to go by: Jae-min. I thought this was only fair since he chose my English name and I went by the first name he gave me and not the middle name my mom gave me.

            “Oh, sorry, I forgot,” She said awkwardly, slapping her face.

            “Well, yeah, I’ve already chosen a song. Haven’t you two?” She seemed genuinely shocked.

            “What? What are you doing?” Seohee reciprocated her shock.

            “Singing ‘Payphone’? I’m really sure I told you two already,” She set down her bags and pulled off her shoes. A worker quickly measured her feet and motioned me next. Seohee and I were so taken aback that we didn’t notice we were at the shoe store until we noticed Yoomi measuring her feet. So, we were really doing the audition. No way of saying we just forgot about it.

            “How about these?” Seohee asked, holding up a pair of bright-red high heels. She obviously wasn’t worried anymore. We nodded in approval.

            I ventured off, away from Yoomi and Seohee to look for some cute shoes. Every aisle had some high heels, converse, b-ball and athletic shoes. Despite my conscious effort to stray from people, I had to compromise when a male worker approached me with amazing black heels.

            “Do you like these? You should try it- they’re slimming!” He led me to a chair and set the heels next to me with a small smile. I thought I felt my cheeks warm up. He was nice. Uncomfortably and weirdly nice.

            I slipped on the shoes and stood up. They were the most perfectly comfortable and stylish shoes I had ever come across. I turned and faced a mirror, turned and looked at my calves, turned and lifted my ankle; perfect 360 degrees around.

            “You like them!” The worker spoke up, coming from absolute thin air.

            “Yes! They’re perfect! How did you..?”

            “My sister just came out with her own clothing line, so I learned a lot from her, unknowingly,” He laughed, bowing and turning away. Picking up my own shoes, I walked back to Yoomi and Seohee. They both gaped when they saw me in something so close to stilettos without tripping.

            “Those look amazing, Jae-min,” Seohee smiled widely.

            “If you can afford those, get them,” Yoomi commanded, her eyes fixed on the shoes. “Gosh, where did you find those? Maybe there’s one like that for me!”

            “Actually, I didn’t find them. This worker handed them to me,” I pointed to him just as he turned towards us. The two gasped.

            “He’s cute!”

            “Oh, I guess I didn’t really look at his face. Just him approaching me was kind of abnormal and...weird,” I bit my lip.

            “You never fail to amaze me, Jae-min,” Yoomi laughed, “Let’s finish up so we can eat. I’m thinking bulgogi” 

A/N: This chapter is really to set up the characters and familiarize you with the names (hence the constant name switching and back stories). Please look forward to the next chapter! (and, goodness, this chapter looks longer on notebook paper than it does on the computer)