~Chapter SIXTEEN~

“Oh shoot,” was the first thing Andrea heard when she finally regained some semblance of consciousness in the morning. Getting over the seventeen hour jet lag had been harder than Andrea had imagined, and was now very grateful for arriving in Korea ten days before they actually needed to be. She didn’t know if other groups were traveling as far as hers had,  but was sort of hoping they hadn’t considered the time change so she would get a leg up. Besides that, it had given her time to help educate her crew, most of whom hadn’t even been outside the California state line, on a different culture. Watching them try new foods and see things they had never seen was fun, and watching them trying to navigate the subway systems and talk to the locals was utterly fascinating.

And hilarious.

“What’s going on…?” Andrea groaned as she looked outside the bedroom door, knowing that the other five members of her crew would be there. Even though they had rented two apartments, one for boys, and one for girls, everyone had a key to the others’ place, so people would come in and out like nothing. Andrea feared that the other apartment owners thought they were too loud, but the few times she had seen their neighbors, they had seemed friendly, so she didn’t worry too much.

“This thing buzzed,” Murphy told her, pointing at the little box next to the front door that connected to the apartment intercom system. “But I have no idea how this works…it’s all in Korean…”

Andrea stumbled over to the front door. “You press this button to let whoever is coming over in and you press this button to talk to the first.”

Murphy looked down at Andrea, a look of confusion and amusement on his face. “How in the world have you picked up Korean this fast? We’ve only been here for three days.”

Andrea sighed and pointed at the paper instructions hanging just above the intercom. “Well, see this is a subject, this is the verb, and these are the markers telling you what means what,” Andrea explained lazily, pointing to the corresponding parts. “Also,” Andrea continued, lifting the paper with the Korean instructions written on it. “The English instructions are underneath.”

Murphy snorted. “You…are so annoying,” he told his leader, reaching over and poking her in the side, making an already amused Andrea laugh out loud.

“I’m going to make breakfast,” she announced to the entire room, making the rest of her crew, who were either reading, talking or watching TV, look up from what they were doing and start requesting food for Andrea to make as she made it into the small kitchen.

"Everyone! I am here!” a loud voice suddenly called out from the apartment entrance as Andrea mixed the pancake batter.

She knew that voice better than she was ready to admit.

Putting down the bowl, she ran around the corner and to the front door of the apartment. “Ryan!” she cried, running into the arms of her best friend.

“If you’re going to act like this, we should have been taking trips apart from each other a long time ago,” Ryan joked as he pulled away from Andrea. Looking around, he said, “Dang, you should have gone to your dad a long time ago if he can afford this sort of place here in Korea!”

Andrea laughed and began walking back o the kitchen, waiting to respond as her crew said their respective hellos to Ryan. Once the two of them made it to the kitchen, Andrea spoke. “You know it’s just a one bedroom apartment right? He’s just renting two.”

“Yeah, but I looked into the prices. For this area, with one bedroom and two units…that’s more money than I’ve seen at once.”

Andrea continued to mix the pancake batter, chuckling. “I’m just glad he agreed. I didn’t know if he would…”

Ryan sighed and leaned his arms on the counter. “Still, it’s very weird. You guys haven’t spoken for...what? Three years? And you suddenly show up asking for what a lot of people would consider the impossible and he’s okay with it?”

“It’s all Judy,” Andrea answered quietly. “It’s all her.”

“But how does she have him so tightly wrapped up?” Ryan growled. “I mean, she married your dad when you were seven. You guys didn’t heads until your sophomore year. What the hell happened?”

“You know very well what happened,” Andrea mumbled, turning to the griddle.

“That can’t be it, though,” Ryan insisted, going to stand on the other side of the griddle.

“I wasn’t bringing in money anymore,” Andrea told him, nearly cutting her friend off as she began placing spoonfuls of batter on the hot griddle. “So to Judy, I wasn’t necessary. I was just a hole in their pocket then.”

“You were her husband’s daughter, though!” Ryan cried. “How could she just kick you out?”

“I didn’t want to ruin my dad’s marriage. One had already failed, and I saw the toll that took on him…I didn’t want it to happen again,” Andrea admitted, looking anywhere but Ryan’s face. She felt like crying thinking about the situation, and she knew that if she looked up and saw Ryan’s face full of concern, there would be no holding back tears.

Andrea heard Ryan take a breath and knew that he was about to say something profound, but he was cut off by a shriek in the other room.

Forgetting the cooking pancakes, Ryan and Andrea rushed to see what was going on. The five other members of Andrea’s crew seemed frozen in place, all staring at the TV screen.

“What’s going on?” Andrea demanded.

“Dre!” Bre cried from her seat on the couch, her eyes never leaving the TV. “Isn’t that…?” She pointed at the screen, unable to finish her question.

Andrea looked at the TV to see what she was talking about, and gasped.

There, dancing and singing, on some kind of music show, was Jay.

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Sorry it's so short!